Armored Core 3: A Mercenary's Vicarage
by Sean Conner
Summary: The Ravens. Elite mercenaries of a dark, hostile future Earth. This is the story of the Ravens of Global Cortex, the so called “Nest for Ravens”. The missions are insane, the rewards are high, and it's all in a days work.
1. Desperados

Disclaimer:

Armored Core 3 and all related trademarks are property of AgeTec. This story is not indorsed by AgeTec and is not meant for profit or commercial release, it is merely a work of fan appreciation for a wonderful game about big robots that you can't help but love.

With that said enjoy the show.

A Mercenary's Vicarage: Written by Sean Conner

Chapter One: Desperados

  The white and ice blue AC plodded though the dimly lit streets of the abandoned aboveground city. The world had been though a lot in mankind's history, for a long time the people of earth had been forced to live underground. Now things were different, the air on the surface was breathable again, but repopulation of the surface was slow to say the least.

     The AC, whose Global Cortex registry designated it "Snowfall", belonged to a Raven, one of the elite mercenaries of this hostile future. Ravens were legendary, they had brought about all the greatest upheavals and heroics of the last fifty years. If it was in a history book a Raven probably did it.

     Today's mission could probably be considered to be quite historic as well, or at least a noble one, a step back onto the surface. Silver, as the Raven called himself, was being employed by the corporation Kisaragi to flush out the remaining Union forces in this city (which Silver believed had been called Edmonton or something of the sort) so reconstruction could commence. Union was a high profile terrorist group, or so the corporations claimed. Silver knew they weren't nearly as malevolent as they were made out to be, but a job was a job.

     "Nothing on the scopes…" Silver reported, carefully stalking between the blown out buildings. His AC (an abbreviation of Armored Core, the name of the highly destructive and customizable battle mecha that the Ravens were known for piloting with exceptional skill) was a fairly heavyset robot. It was faster then it looked though, thanks to a high performance booster. It was equipped for close combat so city fighting was right up Silver's ally so to speak. As for Silver, he was around thirty, with white hair and light blue eyes. At the moment he was wearing a black AC jumpsuit.

     He stalked around a corner, leading with his MWG-MG/1000 machine gun, and again the street was empty "They're probably hiding. Be careful Silver." His Global Cortex contact, Rellena, warned him. She had much better scanning equipment then he did, orbiting satellites and whatnot, so if anything was here she should be able to see it if he couldn't "It will be hard to find them if they're keeping their MTs powered down, or if they are underground."

     "I know tha…" Silver didn't finish that sentence, since the road in front of him suddenly blew upward and a torrent of missiles streaked into the sky and started to ark back down towards him, and his FCS error light came on. He didn't think twice and slammed the Overboost button. The boosters built into the core of his AC flipped up and he rocketed forward. The enemy MTs were already jumping out of the hole they opened up from the old subway tunnel they had been hiding in, but Silver managed to weave between them, though he didn't think until he was passed the hole and around the corner that he could have probably taken one or two out on the way.

     The missiles pounded the derelict building he had ducked behind. A quick check of his radar showed him he was vastly outnumbered; their were at the least twenty MTs, all battle types save for a few ECM MTs that were jamming his locking system "Guess that's them huh?"

     "Silver…" Rellena wasn't really cut out for this job, in Silver's opinion. She worried too much. Silver boosted back around the corner and aimed high. As he jetted across the street he laid down heavy fire and managed to blow both of the ECM MTs out of the air, and his FCS stopped beeping at him.

     The other Union units weren't going to wait and pressed forward. Silver jumped back out into the street and started to fire indiscriminately into the mass of MTs ahead of him. They were equipped with a chain-gun on each side and missile launchers in the core, which was mounted on reverse join legs. The fire coming back at Silver was heavy, so he closed quickly. Once he was point blank he jumped up over the forward MTs right into the middle of them. He landed on one and knocked it over, then jetted back and turned. His laserblade flashed to life and he sheared the legs off one of the MTs, then jetted right and riddled another with machine gun fire.

     The chain-gun fire was too heavy though and Silver had to fly up and land on a building for cover. His vertical missile launcher came up and he waited until he had acquired four locks, then fired. The missiles flew up then came straight down on the Union soldiers. A couple large explosions told him he had taken out a couple, and he fired another volley, and then another after that.

     With their numbers cut in haff or so by Silver's missile attack the Union started pulling back, but Silver couldn't have that and jumped back into the fray. He dodged around a pair of missiles in the air and opened fire with his machine gun again. He hit something vital in one of the remaining MTs and it blew in haff, and the shrapnel caused another weakened MT next to it to go up in a ball of flame. Silver kept firing and jetting forward at angles that were closing the gap between him and the MT quickly as well as dodging their now sporadic fire.

     Another fell to Silver's fire, though without an explosion, another had its right missile rack hit and that blew apart its right side and toppled it over. The last haff dozen MTs started firing their missiles and Silver hit his missile interceptors, and missiles launched from his shoulders and shot down most of the incoming barrage. He boosted straight forward and the remaining missiles overshot him, and again he was close enough for his blade.

     He stabbed the first through the cockpit, then turned and hit a second blade trigger, this time rather then just cutting the blade's energy detached and flew at the MT, cutting part way though it's waist and causing it to fall forward as it's legs gave out. The last few MTs started to fire again and Silver used the smoke of their fallen comrades to shield him somewhat. He came around and cut apart another MT, then fired his machine gun into the next one. It fell back as the cockpit was destroyed and the pilot killed.

     Four missiles hit his left side suddenly. His AC staggered from the impact and the elbow of the left arm was bent in at a bad angle, leaving the arm sticking as the joint seized up, then fell limp at his side totally worthless now. Silver boosted backwards and switched to missiles. As he dodged the incoming fire four missiles locked onto the last two MTs, two on each. He let them lose and seconds later the first one hit. The MT's right ammo storage was hit and exploded, the force blew it into the second MT and caused them both to tumble over. The second missile hit where the first MT had been but the third and fourth missiles hit their mark, and the second MT exploded brilliantly, taking his damaged partner with him.

     Silver checked his radar, and he saw a slight flicker. He turned his AC on the spot to face the last surviving MT. It was already crippled, and it barely was able to stagger to its feat. The ACs good arm rose and leveled its machine gun at the MT, and a cold smile crossed Silver's lips as he pulled the trigger.

     "Well, that's about all I can do…" Sean said humbly. Sometimes the reasons for the pair of ACs to not run at one hundred percent baffled him. Fortunately his AC had just had a professional tune-up, something that poor Maverick had needed for a while. Vixen Doll on the other hand usually wasn't on the combat roster, so it tended to get less maintenance then it needed, which was a lot, quite a bit more then Maverick for certain.

     "Just do the best you can Sean." Luna said from the catwalk that ran in front of the powered down ACs. The two story tall, state-of-the-art battle mecha didn't appear quite as dangerous when they weren't running. Sean's AC, Maverick, was a mid-weight humanoid AC, a fairly proven design, with a high power Karasawa laser rifle in it's right hand and a Moonlight laser blade on it's left. Its other equipment included powerful, wide range radar similar to the one on Vixen Doll that Sean was having trouble with, and a small missile launcher. It had missile interceptor extensions and a powerful Overboost type core. It was painted green and gold, with gray joints, and had Sean's old Raven emblem on the shoulder, an old western gunslinger with a wide-rimmed cowboy hat tipped over his eyes, and a cigarette between his lips. He had his hands in his pockets and was leaning against a large, stylized "7" painted in green camouflage.

     Vixen Doll was quite different from its partner. Equipped with hover-type legs, a variety of sensors including a (normally) very powerful radar, as well as laser based missile interceptors and an Orbit Cannon, which releases independent weapon pods, and ECM jamming pods in the shoulders. It was mostly designed as a support AC but it did field a pulse rifle and a Moonlight laser blade for combat. The hover AC was painted dark purple mostly, with a brighter lavender color on some spots, as well as gold. The emblem on its shoulder was a gold circle made many interwoven lines. It resembled a Celtic knotwork design.

     Sean jumped down from the shoulder of Vixen Doll onto the catwalk, as he stood up Luna could see his shoulders slumped a bit. She walked up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders and started rubbing them for him "It's not your fault." She assured.

     "Well," he patted her hand "That doesn't change the fact that your radar isn't working right. I got it up to sixty percent power, and other then that all that's wrong now is the ECM jammer isn't working. It'll probably have to be replaced."

     "Well if that's all I'd say she's combat worthy, the head is equipped with a ECM jammer too." Luna said

     "I suppose. I think we need to take her in to a professional though."

     Luna smiled and hooked an arm around his waist, and started guiding him towards the trailer they lived in "Well we need money to do that. Actually I managed to find a job for us brother."

     Sean's mood brightened right away "Really? Who for?"

     By this time they reached the stairs that went down to ground level. All their AC maintenance equipment was stored in this warehouse, as well as their ACs and extra weapons they had collected over the years. The place was very large but was little more then four walls with a roof, so they lived in a long, silver travel trailer that was currently attached to an old truck that didn't run anymore.

     "Well…" Luna began to say. Though allegedly his brother Luna didn't look much like Sean. She was around nine inches shorter then him, and had straight sandy gold hair that hung to about an inch and a haff above her shoulder, with the bangs cut just enough so her hair wasn't in her eyes. Her eyes were hazel colored, so looked green or gold depending on the light, and her eyes themselves were somewhat oval shaped which suggests some Asian blood in her. At the moment she was wearing a gray AC pilot jumpsuit, with the front zipped down to her waist and the sleeves rolled up, under it she had on a plain white t-shirt.

     The jumpsuit was designed to provide protection against the elements as well as reduce injury from shrapnel, in case the AC sustained enough damage to where bits of the cockpit started coming lose and flying around. Besides that they were fairly comfy and quite warm, and inside the un-insulated warehouse it was hard to keep warm "The job is from a small criminal group. They wouldn't divulge much information on themselves but they want us to provide cover for a bank heist they are planning. They're going to pay us with a cut of the money from the job so were being paid in illegal credits. Thought I should run this by you before I signed us up."

     Sean frowned. He was a pretty tall guy, six foot one without shoes on and the combat boots he tended to wear added an inch and a half. His hair was dark brown and wavy, and he kept is fairly short, three or four inches at the most. His eyes were a similar color, and overall he wasn't the type that would stand out in a crowd. He was pretty handsome and muscular, where Luna was stylishly beautiful and small. Where they got the idea that they were siblings was anyone's guess, but they thought and acted similar enough that no one questioned it much "Well, I don't much like the idea of pulling a job like this, but we don't have a whole lot of options. I'll tell you Luna, I'm tempted to give a call to Global Cortex…"

     "That bunch of idiots? Damn you are desperate." Luna frowned too "Well, why don't we see how things go after this job. Maybe work will pick up."

     Her brother shrugged "Well, we can only hope."

     Two days later Sean was in the cockpit of his AC. He tapped a couple buttons on the glass screen of the data pad attached to the ceiling and everything started coming to life. A few taps of the keys on the pad in front of him started the diagnostic check. His main screen turned black with a green grid, and bold orange lettering began to fill the screen, as well as a wire model of his AC.

Loading all data…

MWG-KARASAWA: 100 percent energy.

MWM-S42/6: 42/42 ammunition. Missiles full.

MRL-RE/111: Radar functioning. No errors.

MLB-MOONLIGHT: Blade operating at 100 percent efficacy.

CWEM-AM40: VG MG response normal. Missiles full.

     Sean only glanced at the check, and then activated his camera and mapping systems. The diagnostics screen split down the middle and the outside view came up on his screen, albeit from his ACs point of view. Quickly, gages such as heat, ammunition remaining, energy and the like began to fill his screen, as well as radar and an orange tinted box in the center of his screen. He flicked on his video comm. unit "This is Maverick, all green across the board."

     "Roger Maverick. My AC's reading combat worthy." Luna said, her face coming up on small screen in the corner of his main screen. Luna used her own name as her call sign, and Sean had used to use his own as well, but started using Maverick after a while since "Sean" was a little less then inspiring. "I'm feeding you my map data now." She added. His map of the surrounding area panned out and covered most of the city now, including a marker showing where they would be meeting their employers, and her face disappeared with a beep.

     Sean hit the final switch and the smooth male voice of his computer said "System start-up complete. Engaging normal mode." Sean hit the switch to split the catwalk in front of him, and he gently pushed forward on the left stick, and his AC took a careful step into the warehouse, then another. Once free of the docking bay he moved to the door and panned the camera around to make sure that his sister hadn't had any trouble. His AC's head and torso turned so he could look behind him.

     Vixen Doll was right behind him, and it even raised its gun in a bit of a salute. Sean would have returned it but he didn't have his gloves on. Most ACs had human-like hands and arms, and they could be moved around as such. To do so you had to be wearing a special pair of heavy gloves that had sensors and computer chips in them. Pressing a switch next to the control stick would switch the gloves on, since using them all the time to aim and fire your weapons and whatnot was to complex (It did make it look a bit odd when you turned them off, as the AC appeared to press an imaginary button). Normally your weapon responded to your camera, so which ever way you were looking was the way your gun would point. Some pilots used the gloves for complex laser blade maneuvers, or for precise shooting. Sean was rarely that technical about fighting, but Luna always wore her gloves and switched between them and her normal controls fluidly enough that it was almost like her AC was an extension of herself.

     Besides that an AC's controls were fairly simple. The left stick was used for moving forward, backwards and strafing left and right. The right let you look up and down, and turn left and right. The camera would normally stay right in front of you but if you wanted to look around without moving a small pad under you right thumb let you do that. The weapon buttons are customizable, and Sean had it set up so all his weaponry was controlled with the right stick, and he switched weapons and activated his missile interceptors with the triggers on the left, as well as his Overboost. Boosters and jumping are operated with peddles on the floor, so you could control your thrust and your jump height.

     Sean nodded to his sister, though without his vid-link on she couldn't see it. He centered his view back in front of him and hit a switch on the pad under the main screen with his right hand, and the warehouse doors opened into the dark, night streets (of course, night and day were fairly relative in the underground Isaac City).

     He flipped on his vid-link and said "See you there."

     Luna smiled at him over the camera "Remember, if we aren't there in six minutes the contract is off." As a reminder Luna fed his computer that data, and a timer appeared at the top of his screen.

     He smiled back "I know, I know. Should be no problem." His sister nodded and her face winked out, and she took off. With her hover legs she didn't have to worry about crushing cars or stepping on people so she could take a shorter route. Sean had to mostly stick to back streets and rooftops to make sure their weren't any unnecessary causalities.

     He knew he was waking up everyone in the building when he landed on the roofs of these places. Sean was trying to be quiet but when you're running around in a two-story tall robot that weighed god-knows-how-much it was hard. He stopped to rest his generator a moment, then hit the boosters again and flew for the next building. His radar beeped and he took a glance. It showed one green dot and haff a dozen yellow ones. The green dot was Luna, so he knew he was close. Good thing too since he only had a minute and a half left.

     Three more buildings and he was able to drop onto the street. It was deserted at this hour so he didn't bother with a soft landing. The impact forced his AC into a near crouch and the road cracked under his feat. The cockpits of ACs are suspended on elastic-like cables so that you could drop from long distances without injuring yourself. That didn't mean you could fall as far as you wanted, since your ACs legs would probably snap, plus the fact that you'd still get thrown around as your cockpit bounced to compensate for the impact, but it let you be a little more reckless, an attribute which AC pilots were legendary for.

     His employers and Luna were inside a desolate parking building, so he strolled on in. They were on the first floor and a number of powered down MTs and trailers were sitting around, as well as Vixen Doll, which appeared to be in standby mode. As he walked in his comm. screen came up, this time it was a gruff looking balding fellow with an eye patch. "You're late." He said.

     Sean didn't bother powering down, and replied "I've got a good thirty-two seconds. If I was late we wouldn't be having this discussion." Sean didn't turn on his camera, so on the other side of the communication the gruff man couldn't see Sean's face.

     "Turn on your camera." He ordered.

     "No." The man apparently didn't like Sean's response, but he didn't argue the point, maybe he was thinking about the fact that Sean hadn't powered down, and hadn't registered any of the criminals MTs as friendly.

     Luna's face came up next to the criminal's boss, she was giggling cheerily "I see you don't trust him either." Sean shook his head with a smile, since of course she could see him. If the thief heard her he didn't show any sign of it.

     "Alright, Maverick, Luna, lets get down to business. My name is Razor, I'm in charge of this operation so once the mission starts you'll be answering to me, alright?"

     "As long as you're pleasant about it." Sean said

     Razor sighed and ran his fingers though his hair "Ok, one of you covers us during the job and the other keeps our escape route secure, is that good for you? You'll cover us until we reach the Sendo Bridge. We'll blow the bridge and after that we should be clear, so you're on your own after that. We'll pay you after we make it to our safe house."

     "Sound's fine." Luna said, and Sean nodded an agreement. They weren't worried about not being paid, especially considering the group they were working for. If you needed to hire a pair of Ravens for extra muscle then you probably didn't want to piss them off after the job.

     "Ok, lets talk about our pay." Sean added.

     Razor scowled but said "25,000 for each of you."

     "A little light, but that's what's in the contract." Luna said to both of them, and Sean grinned. Best not to let Razor know that they had been very, very pleased with a 50,000 credit payoff.

     "Ok, we take off in ten minutes. Security should be light but we expect the Guard to show up and the whole operation will probably take a half an hour. This bank is fairly high profile so we can probably expect the Guard to go all out in trying to stop us."

     "Not a problem. Is that it?"

     "Yeah, that's it."

     "Ok, Maverick out." Sean cut the link to Razor and stepped closer to the group. His head and waist tipped a bit and he watched the gang scramble to their MTs and the trailer trucks, which probably had the equipment to hack into the bank "You should power back up too Luna."

     "I'm way ahead of you." Sean turned his camera and saw Vixen Doll flanking him, and her left arm, the one with the laser blade on it, waved at him. Sean smiled, and hit a switch in front of him. The computer's voice came over the speakers again.

     "Main system engaging combat mode."

     Minutes later they were moving down the street. The whole party consisted of four basic Battle MTs, two trailer trucks and the two Ravens. The MTs were painted black and were equipped with a single cannon mounted on the center of the core. They moved on reverse-join legs and Sean knew they were pretty weak from having fought the same model in previous missions, though they were usually painted tan.

     It was nearly two in the morning so the group attracted little attention. Sean and Luna both moved slow, not for cautions sake but because the MTs couldn't keep up if they ran at full speed.

     The bank came into view and the trucks zipped forward. They came to a screeching halt and crews hopped out and started the process of breaking in. Personally Sean thought a Karasawa shot or two would do the trick just as well, but he didn't feel like offering up his ammo.

     Unsurprisingly the alarms went off almost right away, and Sean took his position in front of the MTs. Luna turned her AC down the street and hit her boosters "Good luck." She said over the vid-link.

      "Be careful." Sean replied, and the link closed. He swung his rifle around to where he guessed the Guard would be coming from. The Guard was the police of the modern era. They were equipped with customized Battle MTs and were not strangers to fighting ACs in combat. When the Guard was first established they were more or less a joke and they relied on hiring Ravens very heavily. Though they still would bring in the Ravens for difficult jobs they weren't anyone to mess with, unless you were good. No MT made by any of the companies was a match for an AC, even in superior numbers.

     It was a mere three minutes before the Guard showed up in full force. All Sean could see were some fairly standard Battle MTs, chain-guns where arms would be, missiles built into the core and heavier reverse-joint legs then the criminals MTs had. They were painted in the Guard's blue paint scheme, and had flashing red lights on the shoulders. Their were four there and Sean's radar picked up more flanking them for a total of eleven Guard units so far, some aerial. His FCS immediately highlighted the nearest with a red crosshair, and his gun started to track the Guard MTs movement.

     Suddenly his comm. was full of noise, some of it directed at him but most of it was communication interceptions. He did pick out "This is the Guard, power down your MTs and surrender or we will be forced to engage."

     No one bothered with a witty retort and simply opened fire. Sean jumped and hit his boosters, keeping his view centered on the Guard MT, then let a stream of white-hot energy go with a pull of the trigger under his index finger. The laser blast hit the Guard in the shoulder, twisting his MT around as the missiles and ammunition in that side blew. When the flash cleared his chain-gun hung limply from what was left of the shoulder. Coming to a hover Sean calmly fired again, this shot hit the MT between its legs. The joints were melted or ripped apart and the MT collapsed.

     He didn't have time to pay much more attention to what was on the ground because he felt the shock of something solid striking his back. His foot left the booster peddle and he fell straight down, avoiding anything else that was coming in. He hit the booster again and went sideways, but was still losing altitude. He landed on the roof of the bank and had managed to turn around in that time. Two aerial Guard MTs were approaching.

     Sean recognized the model, even customized as it was for police work. It was a more advanced model, one actually worthy of worrying about. Its core was almost flat and formed wings, and it was attached to its reverse-jointed legs with a thin waist, leaving a wide gap between the waist and the core. That was actually a fairly powerful laser cannon it could fire when not in flight mode. It also has a rifle equipped in the core, so it could fire in flight mode. On the ground they were fairly easy targets but in the air it would be hard to hit them with the Karasawa, sort of akin to swatting flies with a large hammer.

    The two fired at him again, but Sean goosed his boosters and slid to the side, then slid back as they fired a second volley. He let lose two shots but the Guard pilots jinked to the right and sped up. They were over the bank quickly and they switched to ground mode. Their legs folded down and the lead one fired its laser cannon (just because he was in the air doesn't mean he couldn't fire, he just couldn't in flight mode).

     Sean jetted left and forward and fired again, ignoring it as the laser blew a good sized chunk out of the bank's roof and scuffed his AC with shrapnel. This time the pilot didn't have his quick handling to dodge and was hit square in the core, knocking the unit backwards. His wingman landed on the roof but the lead was knocked back enough he fell to the street. Sean jetted forward and his blade flared to life. The Guard didn't have time to bring his cannon to bear but he did fire several rifle shots. Sean ignored them as they left dents in his armor but did little more then cosmetic damage. He slid left just a little bit and cut diagonally up, detaching the MT from its legs.

     He didn't attack further and instead jetted off the side of the bank with a little hop. He landed in the street in front of the bank but out of sight of the first few Guard MTs he saw. Instead he had to nearly leap to the left as a huge blue laser blast nearly burned him. He realized to late that the laser wasn't aimed at him, he just happed to get in the way. It burned its way through the night air and cut one of the legs off a surviving black MT. It toppled forward and slammed the ground hard enough to bend its cannon.

     "Raven! We're taking a beating here!" One of them yelled

     Sean was tempted to yell back but didn't have the time. He boosted backwards and left, firing his Karasawa at the wounded Flight MT. The first shot hit it in its knee, effectively crippling it but Sean fired again without thinking and the shot hit it its laser cannon. Something went critical and the MT blew apart in an orange ball of fire, littering the area with bits of armor and blowing up a good-sized bit of the road.

     He turned his AC and came to a halt, sending sparks flying up as he skidded to a stop. His blade flared to life again and he slashed across the core of one of the first Guard MTs. The slash went right through the cockpit and the MT was left standing there with the pilot dead. His rifle whipped up and around and fired two shots at the last Guard MT even as chain-gun bullets ripped holes in his arm, but didn't strike anything load baring. They both hit dead center and the MT blew apart.

     Sean jetted backwards into an ally, his AC's energy drained, and looked at his radar. More units were incoming but he didn't think there would be much after this next wave, the Guard simply didn't have enough units to keep a sustained attack going. He switched weapons and his rifle lowered, and his missile launcher flipped up and the hatch on it opened. His targeting box changed a little bit, mostly just got bigger, and he stepped out into the street, since for the moment it was clear.

     He didn't have much time to rest his jets though, since pink blasts of plasma were coming from both his left and right at the last three MTs stationed in front of the bank. His energy bar wasn't even half way up, but he took it in stride and centered his view over the enemy. He couldn't see them yet but he could get a lock at least.

     The missile crosshair was a little different. More of a box actually, as it beeped away a one, then a two, then a three appeared around the box as it achieved locks with multiple missiles. A fourth missile had locked on before he got around the corner, and without hardly looking to see what it was he was about to blow apart he pulled the trigger. Four missiles fired in succession and were yellow flashes in the night as they flew at their target.  The first three did the trick and the fourth simply caused the MT to explode, rather then simply be ripped apart.

     Sean turned just in time to get some plasma to his core. The impact shook him and set off a couple warning lights, as well as increased the heat in the cockpit by about fifty degrees, but he was still combat worthy and jetted to the side, more or less using his allied MTs as cover as his missiles split locks between the two incoming MTs. The street was narrow so the didn't have any room to maneuver, not that Sean really did either.

     These plasma rifle equipped Guard MTs were on hover legs, witch gave them good speed and the rifles were powerful, but their armor was very light witch made them an all or nothing unit. He had two locks on one and one on the other when he fired the next salvo. The blue Guards tried to evade but the missiles moved to fast. The first two hit their mark and the subsequent explosions crippled the MT, leaving it barely mobile and its gun destroyed. The Second MT got incredibly lucky, as he dodged onto the sidewalk the missile corrected its course right into a lamppost. It exploded and destroyed the light but the MT was untouched.

     The Guard unit landed there and let off a couple shots. With his boosters Sean was able to dodge, but the black MTs weren't that fast and one blew up on the first hit, the second shot flew through the blast and skimmed the MT behind him but didn't leave any real damage. Sean and the last two black MTs opened up on the Guard MT, and between the cannons of the MTs and Sean's Karasawa they lit it up nicely, the explosion taking a chunk out of the building it was next to.

     Sean let out a sigh, and flicked on his vid-link to the two remaining MTs, who both looked a bit stunned, probably from the battle. They both were wearing green pilot suits, gloves and helmets with comm. pieces attached "You two alright?"

     One nodded, the other looked a little shaky, Sean guessed he was the one who had gotten scorched a bit by that last shot "If you two have any backup units, I'd suggest you give them a call. The Guard will probably mobilize units from other districts pretty soon."

     "Rodger Maverick, I'll have Razor call them in. All we've got in reserve are some helicopter crews though. They were going to join us when we escape." The pilot who nodded before said.

     "Considering you might not live to escape without them I'd say it couldn't hurt."

     Luna let out a relieved breath when her brother's face came up on her screen "The first wave of Guard units is scrapped." He informed her.

     "Good work Maverick, it only took you two minutes too." She snickered.

     Sean smiled back "Felt longer then that. My ACs integrity is…" he paused and looked down at his gages "6,702 with no problems." ACs had an AP (Armor Point) rating of between 0000 and 9999. It wasn't a very good display of how damaged you were, since even a small shot could damage something vital with a little luck, but it was something you could read quickly in the heat of battle.

     "They roughed you up a little eh?" Luna laughed.

     "Yeah, they're using pretty advanced units so keep you guard up and take them down fast. If you have any trouble call me, I should be able to get to you pretty quickly."

     Luna nodded and Sean's face disappeared. Normally she'd watch him on her radar, and usually cheer when she started to see enemies disappear, but her radar wasn't working at full power for some reason (Sean had been working on it and guessed it was something in the power route to the shoulder, and not the radar itself) so she had been blind and waiting to hear from him.

     So all she had to do was wait. According to a quick text message she got from the crew inside the bank said they would be ready to go in ten minutes, since a blast that hit the building had somehow knocked out a chunk of the security.

     Luna hated waiting like this. When she was working as Sean's support, feeding him information from her computer at the warehouse she felt better, it was more like she was helping. Out here she could be a liability and she knew it. That's why her AC was set up to support Maverick, rather then fight on it's own. She didn't feel good about being out here by herself.

     It was almost time for the crew at the bank to move out, so she started powering up. As she went through Vixen Doll's diagnostic check something beeped. Luna skipped the diagnostic and brought all systems up. There was a single enemy unit on her radar, so without hardly thinking she turned and slid sideways into the street. She could already see it! Her radar must have been weaker then the diagnostic reported. It was an AC.

     Luna suddenly left a lump in her gut, but she didn't have time think about that. The enemy AC fired two missiles at her and Luna switched on her laser interceptors. As the missiles neared the lasers on the sides of her shoulders rotated around and fired on the missiles. One exploded and the other she was able to side step easily.

     Switching to her Orbit Cannon she moved forward and quickly got a lock as her interceptors shot down the next two missiles. She fired the weapon and three small guns shot out of it. They encircled the AC and started firing rapid-fire pink lasers at it. Once the cannon reloaded she fired again, sending out another three.

     Then the enemy AC, whom she could only assume was a Raven hired by the Guard, had had enough of that and brought up it's machine gun and started firing a constant stream of bullets at Luna's weak armored AC. She jetted away and avoided the majority of the fire, and got into an alleyway. She hit a button on the data pad and small message came up "AC identified as Bally Good." The computer said in an even tone even as the message scrolled across her screen.

     Before she could act further Bally Good appeared at the entrance of the ally and Luna got her first good look at him. He was using heavy reverse-joint legs, a machine gun in his right hand and a howitzer in his left. She knew he had missiles already and saw his head was a wide-range radar type. He was painted orange with gray joints.

     He started plugging Luna with bullets and the howitzer came up and fired an explosive shell into her as well. Luna backed up quickly and dropped an ECM pod, hoping to jam him long enough to get out of this confined space. It didn't work and he kept firing, eating away at her core's armor. She jetted up and let lose three more orbit guns, not even thinking that they would hit the walls around her. Two exploded as they tried to encircle him, but one survived. She cleared the top of the buildings and slid over, shielding herself from further fire.

     A quick look at her AP showed she was down to less then four thousand "Son of a…" she muttered and hit her vid-link "Maverick! I need help the Guard's hired a Raven!"

     Her brother's response seemed long in coming "I'm tied up here Luna, try and come to me."

     Luna didn't get time to think further as Bally Good leapt onto the building. He fired another howitzer shot and this time did some real damage. It hit her right shoulder and the Orbit Cannon exploded, shredding the armor on her shoulder down to the frame.

     She whipped around and brought her pulse rifle up, though some miracle her right arm was still working enough to do that, and she started firing ion pulses into the orange AC. He didn't even seem to notice and fired another howitzer shot, and his machine gun soon joined it. The howitzer shot hit her legs and the machine gun was hitting her in the waist. The combined fire damaged her hover abilities but she managed to boost off the side of the building.

     Normally hover legs let you land as soft as a feather from almost any height, this time she slammed into the ground and hit her head on the side of the cockpit, and her vision blurred and her ears started to ring, so she barely registered it when Sean's face come up on her screen "Were heading out Luna! I'll be there soon!"

     Bally Good wasn't content to wait and he jumped off the building. Luna feebly tried to lift her ACs damaged arm to fire at him but he landed right on top of her. The weight of his AC damaged her core and ripped her right arm off at the shoulder. Somehow he didn't lose his balance and he started firing his machine gun into her at point blank range.

     The bullets tore though her core and head. Her sensors started getting fuzzy, she lost her main camera and the light inside the cockpit started to flicker. One bullet hit the side of her cockpit and most of the top and right side were ripped away, and Luna was buffeted with shrapnel. It was all she could do to activate the glove for her left arm. Her Moonlight came to life in a flash and she slashed up at the Raven. Her attack was blind, but he didn't see it coming and she managed to shear off the barrel of his machine gun.

     He jumped back in surprise, and threw away the destroyed weapon. Deciding Luna wasn't much of a threat at this point he fired one last howitzer shot into her legs, crippling them completely, and he took off for the bank.

     Luna slumped back and powered down her ruined AC. Slowly she pulled off her gloves and felt the side of her head, her hand comming away bloody. She could feel the stabbing pain of other wounds as well but as tempted as she was she fought against just passing out from the concussion and brought her communications back online with what little power she had "Sean…" She muttered feebly.

     "Luna! Are you all right? You sound hurt, why's your camera off?" He rattled off the questions in rapid fire, and she couldn't really process them, so she didn't.

     "That AC is coming your way. Finish the mission, I'll be ok."

     "What do you mean? What happe… Oh crap! Luna he's hear I can't t-" the transmission cut off there, and Luna decided she was done, so slipped into unconsciousness.

     Sean jetted to the side as another howitzer shot nearly hit him. As long as he kept moving this Bally Good person couldn't manage to hit him. But Sean was preoccupied trying to figure out what happened to his sister. His best guess was this guy had beaten her, but he was sure she was ok since he'd gotten a message from her just a moment ago and she sounded fairly coherent. Regardless though the fact her AC wasn't on his radar anymore worried him.

     Bally Good jetted around the corner and got a face full of laser before he could snap off another howitzer shot, and Sean took the opportunity to jet forward and slash at him with his Moonlight, but Bally Good jetted back and flipped his missile launcher over his shoulder.

     "Maverick we're moving out." Razor's voice came over the comm.

     "Leave me!" Sean yelled back as he jetted around the incoming missiles and turned his missile interceptors on in anticipation of more "I'll keep this guy busy just get out of here!"

      "Alright Maverick, good luck." The trucks, two remaining MTs and the three helicopters that had joined them began moving out, leaving Sean to duel with this guy.

     Sean fired with his Karasawa and hit twice but neither seemed to slow him down, and Bally Good came back with another volley of missiles. Sean's interceptors took care of them, and the fight raged on.

     Sean didn't have time to screw around with this guy. If the Guard reinforcements got here then he'd be totally out gunned, or they would cut off Razor and his gang before they made it to the bridge. He fired again, the laser streaking passed Bally Good and blew a chunk out of a building in it's way, then Sean hit his Overboost and used the enormous thrust to whip around Bally Good and flee down the street towards Razor's group.

     Bally Good couldn't keep up without an Overboost, so was left in the dust as Sean flew off faster the Bally Good could track with his missiles.

     It only took a few seconds to reach the fleeing criminals, and he killed his forward thrust and turned around, walking backwards along side the black MTs. He switched to missiles and waited. Bally Good wasn't far behind but Sean was far out of range of his howitzer. As soon as he got a lock with one he let it fly. It shot off and hit Bally Good in his core, and Sean fired another with similar results, though he tried to dodge this time.

     After that one Bally Good turned on his missile interceptors, but backed off. Sean switched back to his Karasawa, which was almost depleted of ammo, and didn't pursue Bally Good, if the pilot had decided it was time to disengage then Sean was fine with that.

     Sean turned around and followed along side the group. His radar was clear save for the AC, and it was retreating _Time to find out what happened to Luna. _He ran ahead of the group and started looking for her.

     It wasn't long before he found Vixen Doll's shattered husk. The hover legs were crumpled in and looked like they had been hit with several howitzer shots, the head and core were a mess and almost totally destroyed by machine gun fire, and the right arm was laying next to the AC.

     "Luna!" Sean yelled over his vid-link "Luna come in! Luna!" He ran up to her AC and saw that the cockpit had been hit.

     "S… Sean?" Her voice came back weakly.

     "Hold on Luna I'll get you out of there." Sean reached for his ACs gloves so she could try and pull the cockpit open.

     "Wait…" Luna's face came up on his screen, and she looked bad. She had a black eye and a number of cuts on her face, and blood was trickling down from her left temple, and she had a number of wounds on her arms as well "Leave me. The mission is almost over you can come back for me… We really need that money."

     "Screw the damn money! Luna we need to get you to a doctor." He said simply.

     "I'll be fine here by myself. The bridge isn't far, just a couple of blocks."

     "… Ok, I'll get them across the bridge." Sean said. Luna gave him a reassuring smile and the link closed. Sean pulled the gloves off and out them back on their hanger, and started to walk away from Luna's AC. Leaving her made him feel like dirt, but she was right, the mission would be done and over with soon, and their wasn't much sense abandoning it now.

     Sure enough two blocks down the road was the bridge "This is it." Razor's face came up on Sean's screen "I'm sorry about what happened to your partner."

     "She'll be fine. Just get moving."

     Razor nodded and the group quickly started across the bridge. Sean decided that it'd be a good idea to escort them part way across the bridge, since his radar showed a few units, probably all the Guard could manage to throw together.

     Halfway across the bridge something flashed out of the corner of Sean's screen. Before he could turn an explosive shell hit one of the last two MTs. A second shot hit it and it blew up, the explosion knocked one of the trucks on its side and it screeched to a halt.

     Sean whipped around and fired off a snap shot, but it went wide. It was Bally Good again. The bastard had circled around and managed to get the drop on them. Sean gritted his teeth and started firing as fast as his Karasawa would cycle. One of the shots hit him in the shoulder but just shook him around, the only other one that hit was much more successful as it blew the spindly radar head right off his core.

     Bally Good managed to land on the edge of the bridge and Sean floored his boosters and rammed the orange AC left shoulder first. That pushed him back over the edge of the bridge and before he fell Sean lashed out with his laser blade, cutting across his waist. It left his legs only half attached and he fell backwards into the darkness. Sean switched to missiles and managed to fire one after Bally Good as he fell, but he was quickly out of sight and range so Sean didn't know if it did any real damage.

     His adrenalin fueled moment of glory was interrupted by Razor "We're about blow the bridge, get clear Maverick."

     He turned his AC back towards the city and hit his Overboost. The huge blue flame propelled him out of harms way and behind him he heard the support-ripping explosions of the demolition charges, and the subsequent collapse of the bridge.

     Sean let out a long breath, calming himself. He hit a couple of switches on his panel and the reassuring voice of his computer said "Mission objective achieved. System switched to normal mode." His missile pod closed and folded back over his shoulder and his Karasawa lowered, it's ammo spent.

     He started to boost back to his sister but from here he could see red and white flashing lights. Thinking quickly Sean jumped and took to the rooftops. He was able to get close enough to see and he crouched and zoomed in. Luna's AC was surrounded by about a haff dozen police cars and one Guard MT. Sean very nearly brought his weapons back on-line, but when he saw Luna on a stretcher being wheeled into a waited ambulance he thought the better of it.

     Feeling a bit defeated he turned and left, heading back for home. Luna's rescue would have to wait.

     The next afternoon, after a restless sleep and a long shower to try and compensate      Sean was slouching on the couch with his arms crossed, watching the flat screen TV across from him. It was the news, and the headline was about the daring robbery at the Tegshu Bank late last night.

     "It's reported that six Guard members were killed attempting to stop the criminals, who made off with more then one hundred thousand credits." The reporter at the moment was a pretty blond woman wearing a blue suit "However, several of the criminals were captured alive. One was piloting an AC that was destroyed by a Guard hired Raven." Sean sat up at that point, and turned up the volume "Although the Raven was able to destroy the criminal AC, a second AC, the one which destroyed the Guard's MT squadron, was able to defeat the Raven. The Raven's current status is unknown. Global Cortex has been contacted about the two ACs and they deny that they are registered Ravens, although at this time it is believed the two rouge pilots were Ravens."

     The woman pushed something on a screen that was mostly hidden from the camera, and continued "The unknown AC pilot was injured during the battle, but will be released into Guard custody this evening. Here is a picture of the pilot that was taken earlier today." The screen changed to a picture of a cleaned up Luna. She was in a white hospital room and seemed to be resting comfortably. No heart monitors or anything were hooked up to her so she couldn't have been badly hurt, though the bandage around her head worried Sean a bit "The pilot, who's name is unknown, will be transferred to the 3rd Guard Unit in downtown Isaac City, where she will await her court date."

     Sean smiled _Saves me the trouble of finding her. _The report continued for a while, but Sean didn't pay much attention to it after that _Lets see… I've got fifty thousand credits, Maverick is pretty much ready to go, the Karasawa is powered up… Hmm… _A plan started to formulate in his head, unfortunately he didn't like the way it ended, but it was about all he could think of. He'd have to work quickly though, and would probably have to spend most of his reward on pulling this plan off. He got up and turned on Luna's computer _Time to call in a few favors…_

     On her side of this situation Luna was rather depressed.  She'd been in prison for three days now, and her court date was in another two. Right now she was handcuffed and wearing the bright orange overalls prisoners are given at the door. She hadn't been told where they were taking her, maybe because they thought she was mental or something. Since her capture she hadn't said a single word, it seemed like the best way to go about things.

     The guards led her into a small room that was split by a long desk with a vertical piece of glass splitting the desk. She looked between the guards and they sat her down in a chair in the center of the desk.

     A minute or so later a door on the other side of the glass opened and her brother stepped though. He was wearing a red vest over a white t-shirt, with blue jeans and boots. He had a sad look on his face. Sean took a seat across from her and the first thing that he said was "I'm so disappointed in you…"

     Luna was a bit stunned, and just stared at him a moment. Sean looked up to the guards and asked, "Could you leave us alone please?" Luna was quite surprised when they nodded and left the room.

     They sat in silence for a moment, and then Luna asked "Why?"

     "Because…" The lights started to flicker and Sean smiled, he held up his right hand, witch had been out of sight, and was holding a small one-button remote "Because we were being recorded. Anyway how you holding up?" He sounded much more like normal now.

     Luna let out a sigh "You have no idea. For one, one of the officers gave me this," She pointed to her left eye, which was black. Her right eye was too but that was from her AC getting totaled "They aren't very happy I'm not cooperating. Two, one of the other female prisoners keeps eyeing me up, and she's a lot bigger then I am." Luna shuddered a bit "And three I'm sleeping on a concrete slab."

     "A concrete slab eh? Good that works with my plan." Sean smiled.

     "How did you knock out the cameras anyway?"

     "It was pretty easy. I found some old EMP generators in the warehouse and I rigged them to this switch, then I just dropped them on the building last night."

     "Ah, cool. So what's the plan?"

     "Well…" Sean leaned forward "It's a pretty simple one. Obviously you can't be confined inside a prison if the prison is no longer around you. Just get under your bed at lights out tomorrow. By the way can you give me a description of your cell block?" Sean pulled a note pad and pen out of his back pocket, it already had a rough map of part of the building.

     "Ok, behind that door there," she pointed at the door behind her "is a hall, it goes about… Yeah that far, then takes a left. No a little longer, ok good. The prisoner cells fill pretty much that whole area, and there are four on each side, I'm in that one. No the one next to that. Right! Ok, so after you spring me what's our plan? We can't stay in Isaac."

     Sean nodded and put the pen and paper back "I know, we aren't. I think our best bet is to-" He was cut off as his remote beeped at him, and the lights were back steady. The troubled look came back and this time Luna almost giggled, he was really hamming it up but it apparently worked. "I think I've said enough." He stood up, but winked at her before he left. Luna could see as he opened the door that it was total chaos out there. The guards came and got her, and put her back in her cell, though now she had a bit of a smile on her lips.

     The next night Sean was standing on Maverick's shoulder, scooping out Luna's prison with a pair of high-power binoculars. He could have used the scope in his AC to as good if not better effect, but he didn't want to chance powering up until the last minute. Dropping those EMP pods on the roof of the place was risky enough, and this wouldn't be any less so.

     Through the windows he could see the lights flick off, and he walked down Maverick's core and dropped into the cockpit. The hatch closed over his head and he strapped himself in and stuck the binoculars down at the side of the seat. He started his damaged AC up, and read the diagnostic before switching to combat mode.

Loading all data…

MWG-KARASAWA: 86 percent energy.

MWM-S42/6: 35/42 ammunition.

MRL-RE/111: Radar functioning. No errors.

MLB-MOONLIGHT: Blade operating at 100 percent efficacy.

CWEM-AM40: VG MG response within operational parameters. Missiles 80 percent.

Warning, armor integrity at 68 percent.

     He didn't much like the look of it, but he hadn't had time to get things tuned back up and his missiles re-stocked. Hopefully he'd be in and out quickly enough that combat would be minimal. He hit a switch on his forward data pad and reached over and pulled on his gloves as Maverick's confident, unwavering and, ultimately, inhuman voice came on "Main system engaging combat mode."

     He hit a couple more switches and his target box changed to a row of flashing red lines that went out into the distance. They looked kind of like a long, straight, bad graphics road. Sean hit another switch and his AC's arms came to life. The flashing lines shifted and now represented where the Karasawa was pointed. Sean shifted to a crouch and carefully braced his Karasawa hand with his left hand. Outside his AC was in a pretty respectable snipers position.

     Sean corrected his aim to the left, and could only pray that Luna was braced and he was pointing at the part of the wall he thought he was. Gently he pulled his index finger as if the gun was in his hand and the Karasawa kicked, firing off a single laser blast. It flew into the distance and ionized part of the wall, but mostly blew it apart. Sean used is left hand to kill the gloves and he pulled them off and got his hands on the controls where they belonged, and hit his Overboost.

      He leapt from his crouch and blasted towards the destroyed wall, then killed his thrust and landed one leg inside the prison and one leg out. He shifted his camera around and looked around, both the beds in the cell were partial covered in rubble. His heart plummeted until he saw an arm sticking out of the pile and waving at him. He pulled on his left glove and started to carefully move the debits out of the way, and after he had cleared a hole Luna squeezed out. She coughed and waved at him, and he opened his hand and she climbed on.

     As he was lifting her up something hit him in the right shoulder and even punched a couple holes in his prized laser rifle. Sean whipped his gun up and got a lock easily, and snapped off a couple shots. The basic Guard MT went up in an orange ball of fire, and Sean's radar showed more units coming in. He pulled Luna up to his cockpit and popped the hatch. She jumped in and landed hard in his lap, forcing most of the air out of his chest "Christ, you didn't have to jump on me."

     "You didn't have to bury me in concrete." Luna laughed and Sean shifted a bit so he could see around her.

     He hit his boosters and went straight up and got clear of the prison, then headed for the streets "Be careful you don't kill anyone." Luna said as Sean weaved through traffic.

     "Hey, who's driving here?" Sean said just before he clipped blue compact. After Luna glared at him Sean sighed and gained some height, and landed on a roof.

     His radar was clear, so he took a moment to rest his energy, then started hopping rooftop to rooftop. They managed to get to the outskirts of the city without running into any Guard patrols thankfully "So what is our plan?"

     "Well," Sean said as the began crossing a bridge into the industrial area "I have a transport plane waiting to ship Maverick to Layered, and a car for us."

     "You don't mean… We aren't working for Global Cortex now are we?"

     "Well, considering that you were captured by the Guard, and I sprung you and killed a Guard officer in the process, not to mention the six last night and the illegal credits in our bank account, I thought we should lay low for a while."

     They had crossed the bridge and Sean hit the overboost again, now heading for the outside connecting airlock that would lead them to the airstrip "So becoming registered Ravens counts as keeping a "low profile"?" Luna asked sarcastically.

     "When you want to hide a leaf, put it in a forest. I called in a few favors so everything is ok"

     Luna rolled her eyes "Ok sage boy, what about my AC? I'll need it if I'm going to be registered again, and I don't think we have the cash to repair it. "    how do you plan on getting out the gate?"

     "Well… The problem with that was I couldn't think of any way to get it out of the impound… So it's still back in Isaac…"

     "WHAT!?! Are you kidding me!?! It cost almost a million credits to put Vixen Doll together!"

     Sean sighed "Please… Don't remind me. I'm sorry Luna but it was the best I could do. She was totally derelict and their was no way I could have gotten her out even after I broke in."

     Luna sighed as well, and looked at the main screen at the large door they were coming up on "Fine, more pressing matters. How do you plan on getting out the gate?"

     Sean managed a chuckle "You'd be surprised what five thousand credits will do to gaining a gate guards loyalty."

     "So the transport is the favor you called in? One of our old transport pilots?"

     "Well he did used to be a pilot for us, but no. That's what I spent the last of the credits I pulled from the bank on. No the favor was getting us a Raven test with Global Cortex, had to call Silver up on that one."

     "Ahh, that old psychopath."

     The airport came into view and Sean used the last of his energy to get to the transport aircraft. Once there the back hatch opened and he walked inside and turned around, then took a knee and powered down. The hatch opened and he and Luna both climbed out and got to the ground. Outside it was cold and dark, and they could barely see Dak, the pilot. He was about as old as Sean, and about the same height, but his head was shaven and he was considerably more tan.

     Sean smiled at their old comrade and shook his hand "I really appreciate this Dak."

     Dak laughed and replied "Not nearly as much as I appreciated the thirty thousand credits you gave me, even if I'll have to launder the damn things through half a dozen accounts before I can use 'em."

     Sean released his hand "You're welcome to the rest too, but good luck getting it out of our account after this."

     Dak shrugged "I think what you gave me will keep me happy for a while." He took a look over at Luna "Damn, even beat up like that you still look good."

     Luna smiled "Thanks…"

     Dak turned towards the ladder up to the airlock "Guess I'll see you two in Layered."

     "With any luck. See you." Sean left Dak and Luna followed. He led her to a small two-door car. He went around to the driver's side and Luna opened the door and got in. Inside she saw her computer and some of their things packed up in the back seat. Sean got in and started the car up "Funny how things work out huh?"

     Luna shifted the seat back a bit and buckled up "Yeah…"

     Sean put the car into drive and started down the road. Although the surface of Earth had been habitable for several years outside roads were mostly used by transport trucks. But the roads were there to use, and this way if Dak was caught with the AC responsible for destroying a dozen or so Guard MTs Sean and Luna would be in the clear.

     "You ok? You seem depressed?" Sean said.

     "I dunno. I feel kinda… Beaten. I mean, we usually aren't the one's running away. It's like the two kids who ran away from home and now were running back into the arms of our parents, who are just going to say "I told you so.""

     "It kinda does. But at least this way we might get some work, and not work that makes me feel morally like dirt afterwards." Sean added sullenly. Luna patted his knee, then let him drive.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well that was it, I hope that it didn't induce projectile vomiting from every orifice in you. If you liked it please don't be shy about leaving a review or dropping me an e-mail at Butterfly Edge@aol.com

If response is good (or if you ask nicely) I'll put together a website with the parts list, stats, paint schemes and such for the ACs in this story, so you too can fly around in your very own Maverick if you want. Yes, all ACs in this story went through rigorous testing before being allowed onto center stage (and Vixen Doll really dose suck that much!)

See you next chapter. 


	2. Bubblegum

Disclaimer:

Armored Core 3 and all related trademarks are property of AgeTec. This story is not indorsed by AgeTec and is not meant for profit or commercial release, it is merely a work of fan appreciation for a wonderful game about big robots that you can't help but love.

With that said enjoy the show.

A Mercenary's Vicarage: Written by Sean Conner

Chapter Two: "I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all outa bubblegum."

     "Can I see your identification please?" Was what Luna heard as she woke up. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, a tad confused. The car she had been in for the past nine hours was on a steel platform of some kind. It took her a moment to realize it was a large elevator.

     "Here you go sir." Sean said, handing something over to the guard. He looked over the papers a moment and handed them back.

     "What is your business in Layered?" '_Ah', _Luna thought '_So we're here.'_

     "We are moving here from Isaac City."

     "Oh really? How come?"

     "To dangerous. Why just yesterday there was a large battle right in downtown and several Guard officers were even killed! I fear for mine and my dear sister's lives." Sean said. Naturally he left out the part that he was the one who had been running around in the big, green AC that had done all the damage, and that was conveniently sitting in a transport aircraft on the other side of town.

     "Well, that's understandable. I head about the attack myself. All right, well I see no problems here so you're free to go. And welcome to Layered."

     "It's a lot like Isaac." Luna commented as the elevator lowered them into the depths of the underground city (although several sections were above ground). At first they could only see the inside of the elevator shaft but after a short while it opened up and gave them a view of the city. This part of it had high ceilings so the buildings could be larger of course, but only a few reached the top. It was brightly lit with artificial light, but a large shaft in the middle of the sector let in a lot of natural light as well.

     Layered had been considered a utopia of the modern era. It was controlled by a massive super computer that made all the choices for everyone in the city. As long as everyone did as they were told then they were basically promised a good, easy life. The computer had started malfunctioning close to haff a year ago though, and, unsurprisingly, it was a Raven who destroyed it.

     Since then the gates that linked the surface to the underground portions of the city had been locked open. Also the computers destruction meant that a lot of people were out of work, since the corporations based out of Layered had to cut back in a lot of places without the massive computer to aid them. So naturally there wasn't much work to be had for a normal person but for the Ravens things were just as good as ever. The corporate war was still in full swing and terrorist actions were at a high normal.

     Silver checked his watch again. Maverick had told him that he'd be here by noon at the latest, so he was expecting him any time now. He paced in front of his AC inside the Global Cortex hanger, waiting impatiently. It was the first time his Global Cortex contact, Rellina Wynn, had ever seen the nearly psychotic Raven interested, much less excited, about anyone. Rellina was a rather up-tight person when not on a mission. She had long blond hair and blue eyes, and always wore a simple dark red skirt that hung below her knees and a dress jacket of the same color, with high heels of a slightly lighter shade (they also pushed her height up a little bit).

     "You certainly are acting out of character." She said to him. At twenty years of age she was ten years the mans junior, but none the less she put forth quite a bit of effort in getting to know Silver, but all she really knew about him was from old Nerves Concord records. She knew he had been on Mars for a time, but came back to Earth as work dried up like most of the Mars Ravens did. She also knew that he had possibly been part of the Plus project in it's later stages. She'd never heard about this Maverick though, or his alleged partner Luna.

     Silver brushed some of his white hair back behind his ear. It had been quite a while since he'd had a proper haircut and he was getting a bit shaggy "No one will give him any trouble when he gets here, right?" He didn't sound so much concerned as he did angry with her if she hadn't managed to get things ready.

     "Yes, yes. Everything is in order. If he's as good a pilot as your claiming Global Cortex shouldn't have any problem setting up a Raven's Test." Rellina clasped her hands behind her back and met his glare openly. She was rather irritated that he'd think her so incapable to have screwed up something as simple as passing the man's name along to the front desk. Still though, that icy blue stare of his was a little unnerving.

     A smile pulled at the corners of Silver's mouth though, and he even chuckled "A Raven Test? You must be joking, a pilot of his caliber would be able to pass the Raven Test unbelievably easily, even with a standard AC." He thought the better of telling Rellina that Maverick had killed those Guard units several nights ago in Isaac, since Global Cortex was trying to be on the up and up. Though you'd have to be stupid not to suspect that it'd been him. An ex-Raven fleeing to the corporation he had boycotted only a few days after one of the most publicized terrorist attacks in the past three months? It was just too convenient.

     "If he had come over straight from Nerves Concord then there wouldn't be a problem. Besides I haven't been able to find any information on him other then a Mars Arena ranking. I'll grant you he was fifteenth, but that's hardly anything noteworthy."

     "Well, competition was fierce back on Mars." Silver checked his watch again "I'm going to wait for them in the lobby, just to make sure nothing goes wrong." He declared, then walked off in that direction, leaving Rellina wondering why he was so excited about a pilot who, in her opinion, didn't seem like he was so good to warrant all this fuss.

     "What can I help you with today sir?" The young receptionist asked Sean. She was worth taking a look at too. She was Luna's age and very cute with a few freckles high on her cheeks. She had black hair except for the bangs, witch were a icy blue color, brown eyes and was wearing a white blouse and skirt that clashed with her hair but were probably just what she wore at work.

     "I believe I'm expected, my name is Sean."

     "Just a moment sir." The young woman put on a pair of oval shaped glasses and typed away at her computer a moment. The Global Cortex lobby was quite sparse. Besides the white semi-circle desk against the back wall and the double doors that led deeper into the building the room was empty. It was made up of two walls, the one with the doors to the outside was curved and made entirely out of glass. The wall with the desk was white, as was the carpet and the ceiling. "No, I'm sorry sir no one named Sean is expected today. What's your last name?"

     Sean ignored her question "Try Maverick."

     "Your last name is Maverick?" She asked as she typed it in.

     "No, it's a call sign."

     "I see… Ah, there it is. Says you and your partner are looking to sign on as a Ravens. You do know that becoming a Raven is quite difficult? We don't take just anyone. What previous combat experience do you have? MT pilots?"

     "Nope. We worked as a Raven on Mars for several years, and a couple more on Earth before that. We were with Nerves Concord before they sold out to Global Cortex, me and my partner here didn't join up right away."

     "Alrighty. I take it you have your own ACs then?"

     Sean smiled "I do. Just need a place to park it."

     The receptionist nodded knowingly and handed two cards to him "Well then Maverick, welcome to Global Cortex." As he took the cards she added "It's not as bad as you'd think here."

     Sean thought that an odd thing to say, but tossed one of the passes to Luna. "Thank you." She said to the receptionist.

     The woman nodded back "You two kids have fun, and stay out of trouble." She said with a sly grin.

     "She was a little odd…" Sean commented once though the doors

     "I like her.' Luna said back.

     The corridor beyond the doors was just as stark as the lobby. It was a short hallway with an elevator at the far end, bathrooms on one side and an unmarked door with a keypad next to it on the other "Guess we take the elevator." Luna said.

     Before they got to it the doors opened and a person stepped out before he noticed them. The white haired pilot stared a moment, then smiled "Well it's about time you got here."  
     Sean stepped forward and shook Silver's hand "It's good to see you again."

     Silver's hand dropped back to his side "Yeah, I've been looking forward to working with you again." He looked passed Sean and smiled again "Luna, good to see you here as well. This place needs more dedicated pilots, not the riffraff we tend to get." Silver stepped back into the elevator and Sean and Luna followed him in. He hit a couple buttons and they started heading up.

     "So what have you been doing with yourself Maverick?" Silver asked. He always referred to people by their call sign if they had one. It was just one of his quirks.

     "Besides becoming a terrorist? Not a whole lot. Being on your own is a lot more difficult then having jobs handed to you."  
     "I can imagine."

     "You know, Global Cortex seems to really bring in the weirdoes."

     Silver frowned a bit "What do you mean?"

     "Well, the receptionist down there is kind of a trip for one."

     Silver laughed, "Oh, you mean Nova? Well yes she is a bit odd but you know most pilots are. It's a shame what happened to her though."

     "Wait, she's a pilot?" Sean seemed a bit confused now "Why's she working the counter?"

     "What, you didn't see the wheelchair?"

     "Em, well, no. I just though she was sitting."

     Silver laughed again "Well, both her legs are pretty much unusable. Her full call sign was Supernova, and she piloted a pretty solidly designed lightweight sniper AC named Red Line. Once though she ended up in the think of the fighting and she was hammered. Her AC took a lot of structural damage, so when the generator when up the explosion blew the core apart and her cockpit stayed intact. The radiation from the blast left combined with getting thrown around inside what was left of her cockpit left her weak as a kitten for a few months. She's managed to get back the use of her upper body, though she still has problems with her sense of touch all over."

     Luna grinned poked him in the ribs with her elbow lightly "Well you seem to be awfully intimate with her."

     For the first time since Sean had known him Silver blushed "Well, she is one of the only interesting people here. Besides aren't I able to lead a moderately normal life when I want to?"

     "Of course Silver, you just never struck me as the type to get yourself a girlfriend." Luna said apologetically. Though Silver never said that they were that intimate, and he shoot a glare in Luna's direction, he didn't deny it.

     "Ahem, so what do you two plan on doing first now that you're here?" Silver said, obviously trying to get the subject away from his personal life.

     "Well, I imagine that they aren't just going to take our word for it that we are good pilots, so I'd say first thing would be to get my AC over here and get the Raven Test out of the way. They might take a bit of convincing with Luna though, since they'll have to give her a AC to use."

     Silver sighed, "Damn, I was hoping that the reports that one of the ACs was destroyed was just the Guard trying to save face."

     "Actually… I was thinking that maybe I'd hold off on the test." Luna said.

     "How come?" Sean asked her.

     "Well, I think I'd do better just being your operator for the time being."

     Sean nodded slowly, but Silver was a bit taken back "You have years of experience, what do you have to fear about piloting?"

     "That I'll screw up on a mission and Sean will get hurt or killed because of it." Luna looked down at the floor, and Silver turned his gaze away from her. He knew that the brother and sister pair was very close, but regardless he didn't think too highly of Luna bringing herself down to the level of simple radio support.

     Shortly thereafter the elevator opened up into the Global Cortex rec. room. It had cream-colored walls with couple tables with chairs arranged around them, an AC simulator in the corner (it didn't get used much), a couple vending machines and one of Global Cortex's emblems on the ceiling. It was a black raven in flight on a orange circle, around the edge it said "The nest for Ravens."

     Rellina was sitting at one of the tables. She'd told Tonin (Nova's real name) to call her on her com-link when Sean and Luna arrived, then she made it a point to get here before they did. She was sure that the upper management didn't want civilians, non-Raven or not, wandering around the building, so she had taken it upon herself to make sure that they didn't loiter around to long.

     Once the trio stepped out of the elevator she got up and walked over to them. She extended a hand to Sean "Rellina Wynn, at your service Maverick."

     Sean shook her hand, but before he could say anything Silver let out a sigh "What do you want Rellina?"

     She ignored him and looked to Luna "You must be Maverick's partner, Luna." Luna nodded and Rellina shook her hand as well, and then clasped her hands behind her back "I am Silver's Global Cortex Contact, and it's a pleasure to meet you both. I think you'd like to get this out of the way, so I can take you up to the main office and have a Raven Test arranged for you two whenever you are ready."

     Silver let out another sigh, but Sean spoke up "Well, yes I would like to get that out of the way as soon as possible." He looked over to Silver, who shrugged indifferently, and then back to Rellina "You could take us up now."

     Rellina smiled, though it looked more like a rehearsed expression then a natural one "Splendid." She stepped around them onto the elevator, and Sean and Luna followed suit. Silver didn't get back on though.

     "I'll just wait here for you." He said. Sean nodded to him and Rellina pushed a few buttons on the elevators keypad, and the doors slid closed.

     "So, you must know Silver pretty well then." Luna said during the elevator ride, trying to make a little polite conversation.

     "All I know about him are things I've read in mission reports or observed myself. He doesn't talk about himself to me. Actually he doesn't talk to me at all if he can help it. He spends most all of his free time with the crippled girl in the lobby or trying to tweak a tiny bit more performance out of his AC.

      "Oh, you mean Nova? She did seem nice enough. I never imagined Silver as the type to be attracted to anyone though." Luna said, trying to ignore the rather unkind way she had spoken about Silver's girlfriend.

      "Her real name is Tonin Vardeman. She was the kind of Raven who mostly just hired out to other Ravens rather then take jobs on her own. I don't know why Silver is so enamored with her. By the way, just what is Silver's real name? For the life of me I can't figure that out."

     "As far as we know Silver is his real name. It's the only name he gives." Sean told her, and Rellina pushed the stop button on the elevator, and turned around to face the two pilots.

     "Ok, I want to know, just who are you people?" She asked crossing her arms "I only know you exist because of an old arena ranking I found." She said to Sean "And I know even less about you." She said to Luna.

     Sean cleared his throat "Well, alright. My name is Sean for one, but I don't know my last name and I doubt that Sean is the name I was born with. Me and Silver were both part of the Plus project, though not at the same time."

     Rellina frowned "I've heard of it, it was a project that replaced most of the persons bones and internal organs with synthetic replacements to heighten senses, reaction time and endurance. A lot of Ravens were "Plus" in the days of the Raven's Nest, but that was long ago enough that you couldn't possibly have been part of the project at your age."

     Sean nodded "If I had been in the project back in the days when Chrome was in charge then you'd be right, but it was continued by a little know corporation called Bizuca Medical. They didn't use many Ravens, since Ravens were too noticeable and they wanted to keep a low profile. Why Silver and me were selected is anyone's guess, and considering that the main side effect of becoming Plus is near total amnesia I don't think I will know either. After that they quietly sold their findings to several corporations and became quite rich, and remained unknown. That's why we've had so many advances in medical technology in the past four years. They've just been putting what they leaned though the Plus project to use."

     "So the Plus project was meant to advance medicine?" Rellina asked, and Sean shook his head in reply.

     "I don't think so, it was just a byproduct of the project."

     "Ok, that explains you, but not her." She nodded to Luna.

     "I'm a survivor of Project Phantasma." Luna said, and Rellina shook her head.

     "That's impossible. Plus project I can believe, but Phantasma is to much."

     Luna shrugged "It's the truth, here look." She leaned forward and turned her head, and pulled the hair around her ear back. Rellina looked and saw a small data plug-in behind her ear "I have one on the other side too, and a number of others under my clothes."

     Rellina rubbed her eyes "Ok, explain I'm listening."

     Luna leaned back and let her hair fall into place "Well, after it was officially destroyed Project Phantasma was picked back up by a young Balena corporation. I don't remember much, but before I was a test subject I _think _I was a researcher on the project."

     "How'd you get from a Balena scientist to Raven?"

     "I'm getting to it. Anyway, Sean was hired to do a raid on the facility by Marakumo Millennium shortly before they went under, but his attack caused a malfunction in the power plant and the laboratory started to break up. On his way out he saw me, and put his AC between me and a beam that was falling from the ceiling. He let me into the cockpit and we escaped. Shortly after that Balena captured me and re-started Project Phantasma with me as the head ginny pig. I don't know if I had had the physical makeup to survive it or they just thought it was a fitting way to get rid of a lose end. Regardless of why they picked me Sean and I had become rather attached to each other in the short time we were together, so naturally he came after me."

     "Pardon the interruption, but wasn't Phantasma meant to meld modern technology with the human brain?" Rellina asked.

     "Yes."

     "So shouldn't you be a robot or some such?"

     "Balena decided that it'd be more effective if I could be used with a number of different machines and computers, like a removable hard drive."

     "I bet getting through computer security is a breeze for you then."

     Luna shrugged "I suppose it might be if the right hookups existed, but even so I don't think I'd like to try it. Last time I was plugged into a machine I nearly lost my mind." Luna let out a sigh and leaned against the elevators wall "Anyway, long story short by the time Sean found me the operation was complete and in the testing phase. I was plugged directly into experimental AC called Legacy and I fought with Sean. He managed to disable Legacy and pull my out of the cockpit. Actually _rip _is probably a more accurate term, since I had probably two-dozen cords and cables hooked into me. After that Balena scrapped Phantasma and focused on AC development."

      Rellina nodded "Silver mentioned you two are siblings. I have to say that the chances of you two meeting under such circumstances are astronomically low."

     "I know. But regardless we know its true, right brother?" Luna smiled at Sean, a smile he returned

     "Right sis."

     "Anyway, while I was still in Phantasma I was plugged into several different computers. Through them I learned I had a brother I didn't know about, and that Sean had a sister. Considering how much alike we are it's a rather natural assumption."

     Rellina shook her head, but hit a couple buttons to send them on their way "You two are very strange, stranger then most. How come your telling me all this?"

     "Well, you asked." Luna said

     "And if I asked you anything you'd tell me?"

     "No," Sean replied "But considering we're all allies here it seems safe enough. Besides it's nice to tell the story once in a while."

     Rellina shook her head again, and the elevator doors slid open.

     "Sir, I have the two pilots I told you about outside. They seem to be…" Whether out of respect or just wanting to keep the information for her own personal use later Rellina didn't tell mister Carlton Odon, one of the men in charge of Global Cortex operations (not missions, rather the actual operating of the company), about the conversation she'd had on the elevator "Uniquely qualified for Raven status. Shall I send them in?"

     Odon smiled "Yes please." He was a slender young man, who wore a gray suit and had neatly trimmed blue hair that was about three and a haff inches in length. What he lacked in age he made up for in his commanding presence, and the fact he was quite simply very good at his job.

     Rellina nodded and left his office, witch was colored in dark reds and had windows along the back wall to brighten it up a bit. Other then his desk and a plant in the corner though the office didn't have much in it. He liked a clutter free workspace.

     Shortly after Rellina left, the two unimpressive looking pilots walked in. The man was dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and a short blue jacket, and his female compatriot was dressed similarly save for a gray sweatshirt instead of a jacket. Odon waved to the seats in front of his desk and they sat down "So, you're Maverick and Luna. In the short time you've been here you've already caused quite a buzz, so I hope you'll live up to it."

     "Well, it wasn't our intention, but I think we'll manage." Sean said, leaning back in his chair. Odon wasn't accustomed to people being quite so… Relaxed when talking to him, and it made male pilot give off a vibe that he thought this whole ordeal was just an unnecessary burden.  
     "Ahem, yes. Moving on, I am Carlton Odon, Global Cortex operations. According to what I have on you you're both ex-Ravens who did not join Global Cortex when we took over Raven operations. May I ask why?"

     "Well," Luna started to say "The only people who are interested in hiring ex-Ravens are terrorists, special interest groups and criminals, for the most part."

     "So you didn't like your employers?"

     "That wasn't it, mostly it was that we weren't getting enough jobs and not enough pay when we did." Sean chuckled.

     "I see. Well, considering you're previous work with the Ravens I don't think there will be a problem arranging a Raven Test for you two."

     "Actually, Mr. Odon, I'm not interested in becoming a Raven." Luna said.

     "What then?"

     "I'd like to work as Sean's radio support."

     "You'd like to be his contact then?"

     "Basically, yes. Besides my AC was destroyed and I don't really feel like starting over with the basic model."

     "Well, alright. Do you have experience in that role?"

     Luna nodded "Of course. I usually assist Sean like this anyway, and I'm used to setting up jobs for us."

     Odon clasped his hands and rested them on his desk "Well, being a Raven's Contact requires a little more then that, but I don't think this arrangement will be a problem. I take it then that you have your own AC Sean?"

     "Yep, third generation mid weight humanoid equipped with a Karasawa and a Moonlight. Just need to pick it up from the airport."

     "We can bring it here with a transport helicopter, if you went and got it yourself it might cause a bit of a ruckus." Odon chuckled "Alright, here's what we'll do then. We'll find an appropriate mission for you. Sean will pilot and Luna will stay here and act as the mission operator. That way we'll test you both at the same time. Normally we have new pilots go in pairs on the Raven Test, but since you're hardly new and you have your own AC you'll go in alone. Dose that sound alright?"

     Sean laughed "You send the newbies in two at a time? You're being to easy on them."

     Odon shrugged "Not quite so many die on the test this way. Until a mission comes up you're both welcome to stay here. The Raven Tests usually pit you against terrorists, and the local terrorist organizations have been quiet lately so it may be five or six days before anything comes up." Odon extended a hand to them over his desk, and they both shook it "Welcome to the new Raven's Nest. I hope your stay is a long one."

     After their interview Rellina took them back down to the rec. room with the intention of showing them their quarters that they could use until they wished to live elsewhere. Silver was sitting on a table with the receptionist from before seated next to him. Sure enough she was in a wheelchair with her hands in her lap. They all stepped out of the elevator and Silver smiled at them "So how'd it go?"

     "Sounds like we're in. All they need is a mission to send us on as a test and it's official." Sean said, then smiled at the black and blue haired next to his friend "We weren't properly introduced before. Nova, right?"

     "Just to him, it's Tonin to everyone else." She pinched Silver's arm, and he jumped "If he'd told me you two were his friends I'd have introduced myself." The pleasant expression on Tonin's face melted into one of irritation as Rellina stepped off the elevator. Silver's contact didn't seem any happier about seeing Tonin.

     "Don't you have work to do?" Rellina asked her.

     "My shift is over, so I was enjoying a little time with Silver before I go home, thank you very much." Tonin reached up and took Silver's hand to illustrate the point.

     Rellina glared at her, then focused on Sean "Well I have work to do, so I had better be getting to it. If you need me she knows my com-link's frequency." And with that she got back in the elevator and the doors closed.

     "What was that all about?" Sean asked.

     Luna smiled "Silver you dog, you have two women fighting over you."

     Silver held up his free hand to block that line of thought "It's not like that. Rellina just gets mad if there is something she can't figure out. She wants to know everything about everyone all the time."

     Tonin sighed and leg go of Silver's hand and wheeled over to the vending machines. Her wheelchair was electric, but was almost silent save for a slight squeak in one of the wheels "It's not even like I haven't tried to be nice to her. I still do, but she doesn't get and friendlier." She put a cred-card into a slot on the machine and hit a button on it, then it gave her back her card and she grabbed her soda "It would be kind of nice to at least be on speaking terms with the person my man works with all day, but," she popped the top on the aluminum can and took a drink "She fairly resigned to not liking me." She moved back over next to Silver and asked him "Are planning on spending to much more time here dearest?"

     "Well, I thought I'd show Maverick and Luna around the building at least."

     "Well that could take a while, so I think I might go out to dinner or something. I'll leave a note so you'll know where I am, 'k?"

     "Sure thing." Silver leaned down and gave her a quick kiss, then Tonin headed for the elevator.

     She waved to the three of them "Later." She said, then the doors closed.

     Luna couldn't help but giggling "My oh my. I'd say you think she's just a little more then "interesting"."

     Silver sighed "Ok, fine, yes we've been seeing each other for haff a year or so and we live together, mostly because she can't take care of herself." He managed to smile in spite of himself "So I imagine your image of me as a ruthless killing machine is ruined."

     "Oh, totally." Sean laughed, and Silver sighed again.

     "Come on, I'll show you around." Silver offered, looking rather humbled but not caring too much about it. Very different from the way Sean remembered him, when he had worked with Silver before he was a hot headed jerk most of the time, and rules enough once in the cockpit that you'd sometimes wonder if he was actually human. Seemed he'd mellowed out a little.

     The next week and a haff passed fairly quickly and quietly, and before he knew it Sean was strapped into Maverick, who was in turn strapped to the bottom of a AC transport chopper that was flying him though this nasty thunderstorm that was raging around the above-ground factory. Since this was basically his initiation mission it was simple, and Sean would almost go so far as to say it was routine. A small terrorist group had captured a corporate held MT manufacturing plant, but had yet to make any demands. Mirage wasn't going to wait around and wanted the problem taken care of now.

     "Combat zone reached, deploying AC." The pilot said, and soon after he was freefalling. He pressed on the booster pedal lightly and slowed his decent somewhat, but still hit the ground hard enough to rattle him a bit.

     "Ok Maverick, thus far the situation hasn't changed so this is still a simple cleanup job. Hit 'em hard and you'll be done before the transport's engines are cold." Luna said over his comm.-link. At this distance video communication would have had a slight time lag, so they were communicating by voice only.

     "Rodger. Beginning mission." Sean hit a few buttons and his combat system came to life. After his weapons were online he hit a button next to the right stick that gave his computer the signal to hack into the door and open it. ACs were a bit thick fingered to try operating a door's controls manually, and since they were rarely welcome all ACs were equipped to be able to hack into computer systems and, among other things, open doors, download information and disarm bombs.

     "Oh, and Supernova is here, she wishes you good luck."

     "Ah, well thank you much Supernova, though if I need luck on this mission then somebody forgot to tell us something." Sean chuckled and the factory door opened. Regardless of his boasting his first steps into the darkened factory were slow and careful. He didn't pick up anything on radar but that could be for any number of reasons, and it wasn't until he had visually checked things out that he preceded further.

     Fortunately Silver was nice enough that he loaned Sean the money to repair and restock his AC, so he didn't think he had much to worry about. Information on the terrorists was sketchy but suggested that they weren't the brightest of their kind.

     He decided to pick up the pace ad go for shock factor rather then tiptoe in and have the chance they'd be able to organize a proper defense. He hit his boosters and lit up the surrounding area with the blue jet. Before long his radar was speckled with red dots and he let a smile come to his face. Other corporations were usually manipulating terrorist action like this in an effort to sabotage their competitors and keep their noses clean, so the tended to be well equipped (as far as MTs go) but severely lacking in piloting skill.

     He rounded a corner and gained a lock on a MT. He killed his thrust and fired. He didn't see what kind of model it was but it blew up with that single shot, so he guessed they were basic combat models. He locked onto another and fired, this time only seeing the blue blast of his Karasawa shot hitting something solid, then a lot of sparks. He fired again on a new target, then on another. His range let him take them out before they could even get a shot off, and he almost felt sorry for killing these hapless fools like this, but then again he was a professional and his conscience generally took a back seat in these situations.

     His radar now only had a few dots left on it and Sean smiled "Luna, I'm almost done here." He reported and he let another shot off, severing one of the MTs from its legs. The core smashed into the ground and crumpled slightly, but Sean would imagine that the pilot survived.

     "Hmm, hold on. I'm picking up more enemies on the floor below you. Also there are some strange energy signatures, I'll try and get more information."

     _Great, just when I was starting to think I'd be back before noon. _He finished off the last few MTs before they could get into firing range and looked around for some kind of lift that would take him down. Before long he found one that led down an open, diagonal shaft, and he started a leisurely run towards it.

     "Maverick," Luna's voice had an ominous tone to it "I've pin-pointed the energy source. It's the factory's reactor. From what data I have it'll blow in less then a minute."

     "Aww crap…" Sean muttered and ignored the lift's panel, instead just Overboosting down the shaft. His feat didn't touch the floor much but they lit up the area with sparks when they did, but Sean kept a steady hand on the stick and didn't let the AC get away from him.

     Almost in the background Luna continued her short briefing on the situation "If that reactor goes the factory goes with it. It'll be a major bust for Mirage. The Brass around here says that unless it's shut down and the factory is saved the mission is a failure. Good luck."

     Sean mumbled a curse and hoped to high heaven that there wasn't a door at the bottom that was linked to the lift and would only open if it was down. Some facilities he'd assaulted before had had systems set up like that for some idiotic reason.

     "Forty seconds left before the reactor blows." Luna said over the comm. She sounded calm witch was good. If she started panicking then Sean would be more inclined to.

     The bottom of the shaft was open and Sean killed his thrust and landed hard on the metal flooring. His energy was almost depleted so he flipped his missiles up into place. They weren't nearly as effective as his Karasawa but didn't drain his energy supply. He started to run, not really sure where he was moving towards "I need to know where that generator is, and if I'll have to shut it down or destroy it."

     "I'm sending you map da… Oh shoot…" The computer in Sean's AC was pretty advanced, but for some stupid reason it wasn't set up to handle long range mapping. If another AC was close by they could feed him map data but Luna couldn't do anything from where she was "Ok, turn one quarter to your left and you'll run into a wall, follow it to your right and you're there. Thirty seconds left."

     Sean hit his boosters, having enough energy for a short trip. Sure enough he found a wall and started following it to his right. When he came to a corner her rounded it and came face-to-face with a MT like the ones he'd been fighting on the floor above but didn't get a very good look at, reverse-joint legs and a core with a weak cannon mounted in the center, the basic combat model. Without thinking Sean hit his blade and ducked left, cutting through the core of the MT as he passed. Its generator blew and the force destroyed the MT, and knocked Sean forward and caused a little damage to the radar on his back. His AC couldn't keep it's feat under it and Sean was thrown harshly forward against his safety harness as his AC hit the ground and the wind was knocked out of him, but thankfully the automated recovery system at least put his AC's left hand out and managed to catch itself somewhat.

     Sean struggled to catch his breath and struggled to get Maverick to move. It seemed to take forever before he was on it's feat, and Sean hit the boosters. "Fifteen seconds." Luna was starting to sound worried now. Sean forced air into his lungs and ignored the beeping inside his cockpit. He could see the generator now, and what looked like a control panel. The beeping increased in speed until his boosters cut out and a low, constant thrum of beeps filled the cockpit. Sean slammed a fist into his armrest and ran as fast as his AC could manage. He'd burnt out his generator and it'd take it a little while to cool down and restock his energy.

     He finally he reached the control panel and brought his hacking system up. It easily got into the generator's computer but he had several different choices of what to do. Sean quickly read through them until he found the "Emergency generator shutdown." He highlighted it and hit a button to confirm it, and "Are you sure you want to activate emergency shutdown? Yes? No?"

      _What dammed fool kind of question is that?!? _He hit yes and all the lights in the factory went dead, not that their were a lot of them in the first place "Is it down? Are we clear?"

     "Yes Maverick, the generator is shut down and stabilized. Good work, you had a whole three seconds to spare, give or take." Luna chuckled.

     Sean sighed and switched his system to night fighting mode. Basically it was just his 3d mapping system but on his main screen, so everything became orange and blocky, and he couldn't see more then a hundred feat in and direction, plus with his radar damaged he couldn't scan much further then that. Sean laughed and waited for his generator to recover, the brought his rifle back up "I'm gonna finish moping up these MTs, I'll be back before lunch."

     The rest of the mission was fairly unspectacular, mostly just consisted of Sean fumbling around in the dark blowing the last three MTs to pieces. It took all of about a minute. Before long he was being dropped off at Global Cortex. The helicopter dropped him down and he went through the hanger door. He backed into the AC docking bay and Maverick was locked into place. He shut down and popped the hatch, then jumped down from his core to the catwalk that had closed in front of his AC (about a twelve foot drop).

     "Congratulations Maverick." Sean heard a familiar voice to his right, and he looked over. Carlson Odon was smiling, hands clasped behind his back "Now I can officially welcome you and your sister back to the Ravens. Here." He handed a cred-card to Sean.

     He palmed the card a moment then asked "What's this for?"

     "You may have forgotten, but all newly inducted Raven's are given a small amount of credits to get them started."

     Sean raised an eyebrow "Small?"

     "Yes, ten thousand credits." To a normal person ten grand was a bloody lot, but when you were talking about AC repair it was little more then a drop in the bucket. Even the fairly light damage he had taken would cost his haff or more of what he just got "Also Mirage was rather happy that you saved their factory without damaging anything, and several of the terrorists were recovered alive, and Mirage is pleased with that as well. Normal you don't receive normal pay for your first mission but we decided to let you have the bonus they offered, twenty thousand credits. Looks like you're already making friends."

     Sean nodded and pocketed the card "Nice to have a little spending money. How much will it cost to have my AC repaired? The radar is pretty scrambled."

     Odon shook his head "The Raven Test is on the house, but after that you're on your own. Anyway, again, well done." Odon turned to leave, but stopped "Oh, I nearly forgot, a few of the other Ravens have put together a bit of a welcoming party for you and your sister, I believe it was Miss Vardeman's idea but I think some of the other pilots are in on it."

     Sean frowned "I'd think they'd be mad that they have new competition for jobs."

     Odon chuckled "There is plenty of work to go around. I'm sure you're used to the Ravens being totally dog-eat-dog, but things are a bit different now. Ravens frequently work together, and not just with the same partner all the time like you and your sister. As such there is a certain level of camaraderie that was lacking in the Raven's Nest and Nerves Concord. You might find it's nice being able to count on your fellow Raven for once." With that Odon left Sean. Sean looked up at Maverick, then to all the ACs lined up beside him. He didn't recognize any and they were all different styles and colors. Some were practical, some were designed for very specific situations. It did feel nice knowing he could probably have any one of the ACs backing him up in a tough spot, and with that he chuckled.

     "Back me up, for a price of course."

Well, that be it. Hope you liked it, or at the very least weren't totally put off by the thick of the chapter being character development and not big phallic shaped guns blowing apart robots. I promise more testosterone pumping action in the next chapter though!


	3. Drivers ed

     The boom of the rifle caused the windows around it to crack into a spider web pattern, and the shell ejected and bounced off the building and landed on a nearby abandoned car, smashing in the front windshield. The rifle fired again and the windowpanes next to it gave out and broke from the noise. "Target destroyed, four left." The pilot said as she sighted up the next oncoming MT. They were slow battle types, and the high-speed bullets coming out of her sniper rifle were more then enough to stop them.

     Her dusty yellow and red AC was crouched in the shadow of a burnt out building. It was dusk and the sky was red. It made for an interesting battle. She fired again, and the bullet blew through the arm of the MT, though it didn't drop its bazooka. The MTs were similar to an AC, about the same size though much blockier. They had a bazooka in their right hand and a large metal shield in their left. But the sniper rifle could easily target what the shield didn't cover, and the bullets punched through their armor without difficulty.

     She fired again, this time the shot hit the MTs waist, and as it slowed a third shot blew a hole through its head the size of a garbage dumpster, and it fell backwards stirring up a cloud of dust with its impact. Her aim shifted one MT to the left, just aimed for the head this time. The first shot took off the side of it's head but it kept coming, then the second removed it completely and the MT stopped, unable to fight without it's camera.

     The MTs, slow as they were, were gaining ground faster then the Raven would have liked. She stood up from her crouch and switched off the ACs manual-control gloves that let her make precise shots like that. Her target box appeared and she started to walk backwards, and snapped of a couple quick shots. Both found their mark on the approaching MTs chest and the Raven was fairly sure she hit something vital because smoke started to billow out of it. A third shot finished it off and the MT lit up the darkening landscape in an orange fireball.

     Only one MT left, but it had closed enough with the light sniper AC that it could fire. It shot off a bazooka round and hit the AC in the right hip, bending in the armor protecting the joint, but the damage wasn't severe. The Raven jumped and flew up and right and landed on the building, though she clipped her foot on the edge of the building and nearly crashed on the way. She just barely caught her mistake and held the boosters long enough to right herself before she hit the roof.

     The heavy MT couldn't fly or even jump so up here she was safe. She switched to vertical missiles and acquired two locks, and let the missiles go. They flew up several hundred feet then changed their arc and came back down. Both slammed into the MT that was trying to take cover at the base of the building and set off its ammunition. The MT blew out a section of the building and the Raven could hear the blast this time, witch was considerably more satisfying then just watching the MTs go down with no noise to accompany the kills.

     "Supernova, all enemies in the area are confirmed dead. How's your AC?" Her operator said calmly. He could have been the one whom the male AC computers were based on, he had that kind of voice.

     "Redline is good to go. Suffered some minor damage which isn't providing any problems." Supernova reached up and pulled her goggles up, and brushed her blue bangs back. The goggles weren't so much for protection as they were to make sure she could see. She needed glasses to do most things, but they could come lose during combat so having them strapped to her head was the only option besides contacts, and since she already had to have them strapped on she might as well have them provide some protection as well.

     "Rodger. The second AC is moving in to take the facility. Kisaragi would like you to accompany him as added backup in case Crest has more defense set up then we know about."

     "Ok, as long as they plan on paying extra." She snapped her goggles back into place and took to the air. In the distance she could see the hill that concealed the Crest weapons research building. It was one of their more valuable pieces of retail so it wouldn't be surprising at all if they had more then Kisaragi knew about. "Speaking of extra, just how much will I get for heading inside?"

     "They'll pay you as much as they are paying the other guy, so it'll come to fifty thousand credits, plus what you got for eliminating the perimeter guards and radar dishes. Not a bad days work."

     Supernova smiled "Not bad at all."

     She hit the ground and started to run. Her legs could move at double the speed of any mid-weight humanoids, witch also meant they didn't have a lot of armor on them, comparatively speaking. Even with light parts she could take more damage then any MT on the market, and she had enough firepower to get the job done though at the moment she was a little light on ammo for her sniper rifle. A assault like this wasn't going to be easy, since it meant a lot of close quarters fighting that she wasn't set up for, but seventy grand in one mission was too tempting to pass up.

     Her mid-range radar picked up her fellow AC as a green dot moving towards the facility, and her operator told her "AC Snowfall identified." Over the comm.

     She hit her vid-link and waved to Silver "Why am I not surprised to see you here? Didn't you just finish a mission less than forty-eight hours ago?"

     Silver smiled over the screen "Didn't need much more then ammo and a paint job. Glad you're going to be backing me up Supernova."

     Silver and Supernova were good friends outside of missions and worked together fairly often. His AC was set up for close range assault, with his high speed machine gun and powerful laser blade, so Supernova tended to cover him from afar, sometimes using the stealth units on her shoulders to get in close if it was needed. He was well suited for this part of the mission and she was already more at ease.

     "I've got enemies on radar." Supernova said

     "Looks like…" Silver checked his sensors "Gun emplacements. You ready?"

     Supernova hit a button under her left thumb and her stealth extensions folded out and activated, creating an area around them that crackled with purple kinetic energy that kept her from being spotted by radar or locking systems. They would burn out after five uses and had to have the fuses replaced after every mission, but they made survival in a lightweight a lot easier "More ready then you are." She hit her boosters and quickly closed what little space was left between herself and Silver's AC, and he boosted to keep up.

     They closed a bit and the large cannons on the sides of the large metal door that led into the facility rotated around and fired at them. The slow, high explosive grenade rounds they were using were so massive that they could be seen as they came at them, two fireballs nearly as big as their ACs. They wouldn't destroy them outright but the rounds could make short work of them if they stayed still, not to mention the heat would cook a lot of their internal parts and the force of the blast would probably knock them over.

     The two ACs split apart from each other and the grenade shots flew past and detonated somewhere behind them. Both were locked on to Silver's AC so he kept moving, zigzagging back and forth to avoid the shells. With a few seconds of stealth left Supernova closed fast. She still had her missiles primed and she quickly got two locks on each of the turrets. The missiles flew up and out, and hit their mark without problem but weren't enough to destroy the heavily armored guns.

     Just then her stealth cut out. It would take five seconds or so for the stealth to change it's fuses, not a lot of time under normal circumstances but it was an eternity in combat. The two cannons turned to fire at her since she was closer then Silver now. The closest to her fired and she jetted right, but nearly ran right into the second shell that the other cannon fired. It clipped her left shoulder as she moved past it and spun her AC around. Poor Redline wasn't able to keep its feat under it and got tripped up on itself. She slammed into the ground and rolled several times before she came to a stop. She was disoriented and between the rapid spin and being thrown against her safety harness on the impact, and then a couple more rolls, she felt like throwing up.

     Instead she hit her boosters and jump pedal at the same time, both full blast. When on the ground the jump pedal would right your AC, but she didn't have time to wait and hoped the two actions could work together. They half did. Her AC tried to get up but only managed to push itself off the ground enough that it wasn't dragging as she boosted hopefully out of harms way. It was enough though and she pulled up, getting her legs under her.

     Her left shoulder was trashed and the arm was unresponsive. She jettisoned the other haff of her stealth extension since it was worthless now and landed. She started dodging left, right, back and fourth and fired her rifle into closest gun turret. Her erratic movements made it all but impossible for the heavy guns to hit her, though she wouldn't have enough control that she could change course in case they got lucky. Finally something was hit inside the turret and it blew off it's mounting, landing somewhere behind the hill and only leaving burning remains of itself behind.

     The radar warning in her cockpit went off suddenly, and she dared take her eyes off the main screen to see what was next. She couldn't believe it looked like twenty units were right on top of her. Her brief lapse in concentration was all the targeting system of the turret needed and before she knew it she was hit square in the core with a grenade round. The blast picked her AC up off its feat and blew her back more then twenty-five yards and she landed hard on her back. Her cockpit was filled with red warning lights and alarms. Her AC's armor had been super heated and was cooking itself. Unfortunately the place she had cut the most weight (and performance) from her AC was its radiator, and it was struggling to get Redline's heat down.

     Supernova was nearly sideways in her cockpit even with the harness, and she struggled to get her feat back on the floor so she could move. In the back of her mind she knew she wouldn't get up and away in time but she tried anyway. So focused she was that she didn't see Silver finally get close enough to engage. He jetted forward and around a grenade shell that was fired at him, riddling the turret with machine gun bullets. By the time he was point blank it was billowing smoke and sparks, but he took no chances and hacked it in haff with his laser blade. It exploded and his AC was engulfed in fire for a moment, but as the flames cleared he seemed to be alright.

     "Nova, are you alright?" He didn't sound worried but she knew him well enough that he was.

     Slowly her AC stood and settled itself. She didn't look good, her left arm was limp with most of the shoulder just a mess of torn armor. Her core was burnt and the front armor nearly destroyed, but intact, and her head was a little askew. The right arm didn't seem to be working well and the AC was letting off smoke from most of its joints "My… Yeah I'm ok… My AP is in the red."

     Nether pilot was given much time to collect their wits, as the facility doors opened and twenty or more MTs marched out. In front were more advanced battle MTs with dual chain guns and missiles, behind them were hover MTs with plasma rifles and bringing up the rear were close combat models, witch had short humanoid legs, boxy but well armored cores and a laser blade on one arm and a shotgun on the other.

     "Shit!" Supernova fired her rifle into to first MT she got a lock on. It was probably the luckiest shot she ever made, the snapshot hit and went through the MT and it fell backwards, she'd hit the cockpit dead center and killed the pilot. Her luck ran out there as the MT beside it stepped aside and it and the two behind it started firing their chain guns at her. She tried to dodge left but the controls were sluggish and bullets punched through her damaged core, setting of a few alarms as some systems were damaged.

     Her AC did move though and she fired a couple shots into the mass of MTs, but didn't bring any down. Silver was on them in a flash and cut off one of the chain guns off one MT before he hit the ground. The MTs were concentrating a lot of fire on him but almost blindly he rushed them, hacking his way through their front line in a matter of seconds.

     One of the hover MTs slipped past him and fired at Supernova. He was a good shot and she tried to change direction to dodge but her entire AC seemed to have slowed and for a brief moment she was stuck in the same spot as the AC came to a stop and sifted it's boosters. The plasma shot hit her left arm and blew it off at the elbow leaving a melted stub, but she got moving again and switched to her missiles and fired as soon as one had locked. It launched and came down on the MTs rifle, shredding it and knocking out the MTs generator it seemed, since it crashed into the ground and stayed there after it hit.

     She looked into the mess Silver had made and saw he had fought the MTs back into the facility, but she also saw two of the close combat MTs leap over him and head straight for her _They don't think they can get him, so they're trying to pick of the wounded one. That's nice of them… _She thought, and switched back to rifle and started to backpedal. Supernova started to fire at the lead MT, first she hit it in it's knee, another lucky shot, and when it landed the leg buckled and it fell to the ground, and two more shots blew it up. Its partner fired its shotgun and peppered Supernova with weak grapeshot, but even weak attacks were more then she could handle at this point. She brought her rifle up and fired, the shot went over the MTs shoulder and it landed and jetted forward. It fired the shotgun again and this time more if it hit her.

     Something vital was hit and her cockpit went dark monetarily, then her sensors and targeting came back up but not her camera. She still had a lock and fired but the MT moved around to her right side and she lost it. She felt the impact of another shotgun blast and her right arm went dead, then the distinct sound of a blade accompanied her rifle going offline. Panicked Supernova hit her Overboost, but got nothing. She felt another laser blade strike hit her and everything in the cockpit went dead, except for one thing.

     All noise, all the light, everything was down save one panel. She let out a breath and forgot to take another one as she read the four red numbers of her AP, "0000" her AC was dead, and she would be too in a matter of seconds.

     Outside the cockpit the MT pulled its blade out of the side of the AC and jetted back. Redline stumbled and an internal explosion blew off the right side of the core and the ACs damaged head. It fell to one knee and another blast tore off most of the armor on the core, leaving its damaged guts and the cockpit exposed. Then it was racked with small blasts as energy and cooling lines burst, then one final, massive explosion blew the AC into a hundred unrecognizable parts and what was left of the legs toppled over. Several large chunks of the core hit the ground, one of them having the mangled cockpit inside it, and then it was quiet.

                                                      *                *                *

     Tonin woke up then, but not in a cold sweat or panicking like most would, though her heart was pumping pretty hard. She stared at the dark ceiling for a couple minutes and let her heartbeat slow down _Damn dream. I wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't wake up at the end every time _She reached over and found that the bed next to her was empty, so she pawed at the nightstand until she found her glasses and put them on, and looked at the clock, it read _01:48._

     The numbers had the large, digital look of the numbers that displayed your AP in an AC, the numbers that were blinking at her at the end of her dream. But the clock numbers were green, and that calmed her down a little. Green was good, green meant you weren't anywhere close to being barbequed as your generator blew. She looked around the bedroom and it didn't take long to find the man who should be in bed with her. Silver was standing, looking out the window. The lights from the surrounding buildings filtering through the shades made orange stripes across his body, witch was only clothed in a pair of boxer shorts. Dressed only in those you could see the two long vertical scars along his back that made it look like he had a pair of wings someone had cut off. In truth they were just a little leftover from the Plus project he had been though.

     Tonin propped herself up on her elbows so she was partially sitting up. She could move at the waist a little, but she couldn't sit up without something to lean against. At the moment she wasn't wearing much either, a lose white tank top and her underwear. She too had a few things on her that her clothes normal covered up, tattoos mostly. On her left arm she had a sort of running fire pattern that formed a double helix down to her elbow. On her right bicep she had two sniper rifles crossed to form an "X" that were framed with a silver ring. Lower on her arm she had a big patch of scar tissue that was mostly covered with a thorny rosebush. She had more tattoos, mostly on her chest and back but her shirt covered them.

     "Silver?"

     He looked over at her and smiled "I'm sorry did I wake you up?"

     Tonin shook her head "I had that damn dream again, the one about my last mission."

     "Oh, that one." He walked over and sat on the bed next to her "You alright?"

     She nodded "Yeah, I'm fine. It's almost like I'm just analyzing a replay now." The first few times she had the dream it spooked her pretty bad, but she'd had it enough times that it didn't phase her much any more.

     "You need to go to the bathroom?" He asked. It'd be easier for him to carry her there then to get into her wheelchair.

     "Nope."

     "Need a drink? Glass of water?"

     Tonin laughed and used him to pull herself up the rest of the way. She leaned against his back and draped her arms over his shoulders "You're pampering me."

     He laughed back "Well, yes I am." They had been friends before her last mission, and after they had become romantically involved. Silver had felt somewhat responsible for the accident, though not so much that he harbored any guilt about it. You expect these things to happen when you're on a battlefield. The main reason he started to take care of her was just because their wasn't really anyone else that would, save for the hospital and Tonin didn't want to stay their forever. The two months she had to stay while she got her upper body working nearly drove her crazy.

     "So you couldn't sleep either huh?" She asked him.

     "Nope. I just woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, that was about a half hour ago."

     Tonin yawned "Well, lay down with me for a while so I can get back to sleep. I always get restless if I fall asleep without you next to me."

     Silver gave her hand a squeeze and did lay down next to her. It didn't take long for her to get back to sleep, so Silver carefully got back up and got dressed, and headed downstairs to his car. He suddenly felt like tampering with his AC. That always relaxed him.

                                                      *                *                *

     The damp, brown haired and eyed pilot pulled up the black trousers and zipped them up, then pulled a white shirt on and then slipped into his boots. Sean stood and stretched, and scratched at his wet hair before pulling on his short black jacket. Global Cortex wasn't to bad a place to live he had decided, though the whole public showers thing bugged him. He tended to wait until everyone was gone before stripping down and showering off. Sean shut the locker he had kept his clothes in while he was showering then walked towards the door, trying to think of what to do with the rest of his day.

     Things were slow right now. He had already passed up a number of jobs just on the grounds that they probably wouldn't pay enough to repair his AC afterwards. Granted technically speaking he was a E ranked raven, but still he knew he was skilled enough for the high paying job, he just needed to let everyone else know that too. It wouldn't be until this weekend that he could sign up for some arena matches during the following week, and maybe make a name for himself. He could only get so high in a week but if he managed to plow through the E (and hopefully D) ranked Ravens with ease then maybe the corporations would take notice of him and start offering up the big bucks.

     Sean walked down the hall a ways until he came to the rec. room and he hit the call button for the elevator.

     Before long he was down in the lobby. He said hi to the receptionist (Tonin had the day off for physical therapy) and headed outside. Though Layered didn't have the dark atmosphere of Isaac it still was fairly dank, even in this high-class section of the business district. The Global Cortex building behind him took up four city blocks, mostly due to the AC hangers around the back. Other then it there were plenty of large buildings, though most were taller then they were wide unlike Global Cortex. Office buildings dominated the landscape but a few of the buildings were large department stores or expensive apartment complexes, or hotels that probably cost even more.

     Sean stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk towards the Global Cortex garage where his car was. He hadn't bought anything new yet so he was still driving around in his little blue family sedan POS. Most Ravens would splurge on their cars and get fancy, high-end sporty things or the like, Sean didn't feel like wasting the money.

     Finally down in the parking garage he started to walk towards his car "Hey, Raven!"

     Sean stopped and looked back, and saw some guy walking towards him. Sean immediately assumed he was a pilot because no one besides a Raven would have the gall to dress like that. He had shaggy true-blue black hair and a ring in his left eyebrow. He was about Sean's height, maybe an inch shorter, and was wearing a very tight fitting black tank top tucked into black jeans. On his feat were black combat boots and around his shoulders he had a long, red cloak. He was smiling at Sean, lord only knows what for.

     "You're the newbie Maverick right?" Was what he asked Sean when he was close enough to talk in conversational tones.

     Sean sneered a bit "On a technicality, yes."

     The man's smile broadened and he extended his hand "I'm Lance, ranked B-6 in the arena. You might not know it but I take it upon myself to show all the new Ravens around, maybe give them a few pointers, things like that." He was oblivious to Sean's growing irritation.

     Being more polite then your average mech jock Sean shook his hand, though he did it as quickly as possible "I already know my way around, and I don't need any pointers."

     Lance held his hands up "Alright, alright. A little humility wouldn't kill you though. Were you heading out?"

     "Yes."

     "Well tell you what, how about I take you out to lunch? You know, a nice little comrade to comrade kinda thing."

     Sean sighed "Ok, sure. Not like I was planning anything anyway."

     "Great!" Lance smacked Sean on the shoulder in a friendly manner "I know you haven't been on any missions since you joined, so I figured someone springing for a meal would be good for you. Here we'll take my car." Lance said, and he led Sean to a sporty, two-seater red convertible with black racing stripes. It had diamond shaped headlights that curved with the aerodynamic shape of the hood, and the trunk had a racing stabilizer on it. Lance hopped over the door into the drivers seat, Sean just opened the door and got it "So," Lance started to say as the car started with a low thrum and he backed out of the parking space "Where did you get that AC of yours? Its a bit more leet then I would expect from a noob."

     Sean brushed his hair out of his face as Lance sped out of the parking garage and onto the streets of Layered "I was a Raven with Nerves Concord, and I worked freelance for a while before coming here."

     Lance whistled and whipped around a corner, getting a few honks from the people he cut off "So then I guess you don't need any pointers eh? So what was your rank?"

     "My arena rank was A-1."

     "What?!?" Lance took his eyes off the road a moment to look at Sean "You've got to be kidding me!"

     "It was just in Isaac, you probably could have gotten that high there too." Sean had his arms crossed but managed up point forward "Car."

     "Huh? Oh damn." Lance sideslipped into oncoming traffic a moment, hit the gas and get around the car before he rear-ended them, then pulled off onto a onramp "This'll get us out of the underground. It's too stuffy down here." He said as they pulled onto the raised parkway.

     At the speed Lance was going it didn't take long before they went through a short tunnel and came out in the aboveground portion of the city. It was still very much a city but there was the occasional tree planted in a hole in the sidewalk, and being able to see the sky was nice.

     "So who's that girl who's always hanging around with you? She's not a Raven too is she?" Lance asked as he pulled off the parkway and got back down into the city. This part wasn't quite so… Tall as the rest of Layered, and it was mostly comprised of two story buildings that housed small, privately owned stores.

     "She used to be, but she just wants to work as my contact now. She got pretty beat up on her last mission and I think she just doesn't have a very high opinion of herself at the moment."

     "Well that's a drag, she seems like… What the fu…?" Lance trailed off as traffic came to a sudden halt "Crap, what the hell is the problem?" Lance honked his horn, as if that would really get people to pick up the pace.

     "Here, pull off here." Sean said.

     "Why?"

     "There's a park right there." Sean pointed to the other side of the street. Lance shrugged and managed up pull off the road. With traffic at a stand still walking across the street was fairly easy, and Sean breathed in the fresh air "Ah, this is nice." He said as they walked through the park's grass and under a couple of red, leafy trees.

     Lance nodded "So what? It's just a park theirs half a dozen up here."

     "I've been living in Isaac for quite a while, and before Isaac it was Mars. I don't get outside much."

     Lance shrugged "Whatever." He paused a moment, then looked off roughly in the direction of the traffic jam "You hear that?"

    "No." Sean was watching a small bird in the tree above him. He was disappointed when it flew off, but realized that shortly before it had taken flight he _had _heard a noise. The noise was quickly identifiable, it was a mech of some type. More then likely a MT but nether Sean or Lance could tell from this distance

     What kind of mech it was was quickly apparent though since the thumping was getting closer and the people running for their lives started coming this way (funny how a two-story tall robot build for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc and destruction gets people thinking their lives are in danger). Shortly after a basic rifle equipped battle MT came into view as it marched into the intersection at one corner of the park, ignoring the cars it was crushing under foot.

     Another thing is that when you're not in an AC then those stupid, basic MTs that no self-respecting Raven would be caught dead in suddenly looked a LOT more dangerous. This thought was reinforced as the MT started firing at the fleeing civilians. It didn't seem to be trying very hard but as it blew apart storefronts, parked cars and sections of sidewalk the people running were under a near constant rain of dangerous shrapnel.

     "Maverick! Come on!" Sean looked over and saw Lance at the edge of the street waving at him to follow. Sean didn't much mind obliging the pilot at this point and ran towards him. They were both running for Lance's car and the MT didn't seem to have noticed them. Sean vaulted the door and landed in the seat, and was a little surprised when Lance didn't get in but opened the trunk and pulled out something.

     Sean looked back at him "What the hell are you doing?"

     Lance grinned as he pulled out his prize "Getting my anti-MT rifle out of the trunk. Get this baby idling, I need to set the rifle up."

     Sean gave him an odd look but caught the key ring when it was tossed to him and slid into the drivers seat. Lance got in the passengers seat and folded out the small tri-pod the rifle was mounted on, then pulled the stock out and locked it and slapped in a magazine. When he pulled back the slide the barrel extended, making the whole thing about six feet long. It had a pistol style grip and the barrel looked like it had built-in suppressors. The clip went in front of the trigger, and if it was any indication of the size of the bullets then Sean could imagine how they could punch through a MT's armor, since the clip was about seven inches long.

     Lance turned around and set the tri-pod down on the trunk of the car and sighted the MT through the built-in scope. Sean watched with more then a little interest at this, he was rather curious to see if it would work. Lance squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked hard against his shoulder, though the stock was built to take a lot of the recoil. A loud pang accompanied the shot as it punched through the MT's armor and went out the other side. Although the bullet had managed to blow a baseball sized hole in the side of the MT all Lance had really accomplished was getting the MTs attention.

     "You idiot! Aim for its ammo stores or something!" Sean yelled.

     "Forget that, just drive!" Lance shouted as he sighted up for another shot. Sean couldn't head back to the freeway so he guessed he'd have to go deeper into the city and loop around. He backed up a little bit and then drove onto the sidewalk and took off. Lance fired again and this time must have hit something important because the MT blew apart as something explosive ruptured inside the MT.

     Still on the sidewalk Sean rounded the corner and picked up some speed. At the next intersection he could see more MTs straight ahead and to his left, so he took a right. Unfortunate there were a couple MTs here too but on the bright side the traffic jam was mostly cleared up over here.

     He swerved out into the street and Lance swung his rifle around and fired at the closest MT, the rifle making a loud popping noise each time it was fired. Lance's shot missed as Sean drove around the first MT. The second one saw them and turned to fire. Sean swerved just as he did and the road next to him burst into rubble. Sean turned right and drove around the second MT and turned left at the next intersection, now just going wherever there weren't abandoned cars filling the streets. Unfortunately the reason there weren't any cars was because the MTs were in this direction, but he didn't think about that.

     Sean had managed to find a main street it seemed, since it was four lanes across here. It gave him some room to maneuver and probably went somewhere helpful, maybe into an industrial area where losing MTs would be easy, or maybe it led out of the city limits and out of the combat zone.

     Off a side street a MT walked into his path, spraying fire at him. Sean was quick to serve back and forth but he didn't feel terribly nimble in this car. Lance managed to steady his aim by resting the rifle on the top of the windshield and he fired at the MT. Either Lance was getting better or had just gotten lucky again but whatever the reason the MT blew, and Lance had to duck behind the windshield as his car was hit with chunks of the MT, a couple of them big enough to crack or cave the windshield in slightly.

     As another one walked out into the street up ahead Sean shouted "I think we've got their attention!"

     "Better us then those civilians!" Lance yelled back as he pulled out the empty clip and slapped in a new one. He fired a shot at the MT and missed, then it fired back. It didn't miss, though its aim could have been better. The MT's rifle shot hit just in front of their left tire, blowing it out and nearly flipping the car over. Sean struggled to keep their speed up and them going in a straight line. It was tough and the MT marching towards them laying down heavy fire wasn't helping. Another shot nearly hit them and Sean started to lose it. The car fishtailed and ended up pointing right at the MT. Sean swerved but they were moving to fast. The car started to slide sideways and the back end hit the MT's foot. That was all it took and the car flipped. They still had a decent amount of speed and the car landed on it's top and skid that way for a few yards before it began to roll and finally came to a stop on it's top next to the sidewalk.

     Lance fired two quick shots at the MT, the first it but didn't do anything, the second managed to hit the MT's ammunition bin and it exploded. Lance pulled his cloak over his head to shield himself from the blast then stood up from his crouch. When the car started to flip he had managed to jump out and do a forward roll when he hit the ground, so he was pretty unscathed. Lance looked around and couldn't see Sean anywhere, but as he ran towards the wrecked car he could see blood along the path the car had taken as it rolled.

     "Maverick!" Lance yelled, and he tried to look under the edge of the car to see if he could see the fellow Raven, but he couldn't see anything. Lance stood up and was about to leave him for dead (though he wasn't very happy about having to do it) but something thumped inside the car. The second thump kicked the passenger side door open, and Sean crawled out from under the car.

     Saying he looked bad would have been a little off. Sean looked like he should be on a stretcher. He stood up a bit shakily and dusted himself off. His left shoulder was ripped up pretty bad, and so were both his arms. He had a big gash on his head and some unidentifiable piece of the car was stuck in his side below his ribcage, which he quickly yanked out and tossed on the ground.

     "Holy shit…" Was all Lance said for a few seconds "Are… You ok?"

     "I think I'll make it." Sean replied. His voice was surprisingly strong. Truth was beside the apparent injuries Sean guessed he probably had a concussion (more then likely a bad one, he hadn't had very many and couldn't gage it but he felt like passing out) and one or more of the bones in his left arm was probably cracked, and one of his ribs was broken he thought. But the Plus project he had been though wasn't for nothing after all. "We need to get out of here." He said, Lance nodded a little bit and the two ran for an alleyway that looked to narrow for a MT to fit.

     They jogged down the alley, Lance still hauling along his rifle and Sean just working on moving at all, when something inside Lance's cloak rang. He stopped and pulled out a small silver cylinder that folded in half to make up a very compact mobile phone "Yeah?" He said into it, and a smile crossed his face after a few second of talking with whoever was on the line "Yes. Yes I know that there are MTs in the Otsego City area, I'm right in the freaking thick of it. Yeah you better." Lance hung up his phone and put it back in his cloak "Good news buddy, that was my Global Cortex contact, she says that she's arranging a transport to come out and pick us up."

     Sean sat down against a wall "Neato."

     "Yep, also she says the Guard needs two Ravens to handle this situation, so I guess that's me and whoever we can scrounge up. It sounds like today was a bad day for a terrorist strike 'cus damn near all the Ravens are out on missions or are just out for the day today."  
     "I can go with you." Sean said, and winced as his chest started to hurt.

     "You know, I'll grant you that you're pretty damn tough, but I'm gonna say that your not fit to be in a AC right now." Lance crossed his arms and took a tone that he tended to use on new pilots who were trying to get more out of themselves then they could.

     Sean chuckled "We'll see about that, buddy."

                                                      *                *                *

     Twenty minutes later the two Ravens had been picked up and were back at Global Cortex. Lance was already in his AC and ready to go, he was just waiting for them to find someone to go with him. He was drumming his fingers on his armrest impatiently. He was wearing his custom tailored AC pilot jumpsuit, it was dull yellow and had black stripes that started on his back, came over his shoulders and ended with the tips about two inches apart in the middle of his abdomen.

     Finally his contact, Hanna Malsmith, a brown-haired young lady about the same age as Lance with a pair of glasses over her brown eyes, came up on his vid-link "About time." Lance muttered.

     "Sorry, but we had to patch the pilot up a bit before he could get his jumpsuit on."

     Lance paused for a couple seconds "You're kidding me…"

     Almost on cue Sean's face came up on Lance's screen "Told you." He said with a bit of a grin. Besides a white bandage around his head that had a few small spots where blood had soaked though you couldn't tell he had been through a car crash that by all reasoning should have killed him a little under a half hour ago. His basic gray jumpsuit covered all the damage on his shoulder and arms, and he didn't look like he was in any discomfort (painkillers getting injected into your arm will do that).

     Lance sighed, and managed to resist saying "Stupid kids." Since Sean was a bit older then him, so he rephrased it to "Stupid cowboys…"

     Sean laughed and hit a couple switches "Systems are up and I've got all green across the board. Let's get this party started."

                                                      *                *                *

     Finally they were on their way. Both of the pilots were pretty pleased that they'd be able it go back and enact a little revenge, Lance for his fifteen thousand credit sports car that they totaled, Sean for all the time he'd probably have to spend in bed recovering from his head injuries (he was even feeling pretty lightheaded on the flight out to the combat zone)

     "We're over the drop zone, deploying ACs." The pilot (female this time) said over the comm., then dropped Lance and shortly after dropped Sean. Lance's AC was kinda similar to Sean's in looks, with the same core, arms and a lighter version of the same head as Sean's but with upgraded sensors and radar. But the overall design made the two ACs very different. Lance's AC was equipped with a pair of prototype high-speed legs, a machine gun and rockets, a Moonlight laser blade, back mounted radar and on the shoulders extensions were energy shields that could soak up damage coming at his upper body from the sides when they were activated. It was built for moving and shooting fast and on the fly, where Sean's Maverick was built to slug it out with superior firepower. Zing, as Lance called his AC, was pained in a multi-tone design. The head and legs were predominantly gold with black joints, but the core and arms were almost solid ebony.

     "Ok, I'll be giving both of you support since we couldn't locate Maverick's operator. We have a good idea what you're up against and it's mostly basic battle MTs, though Guard units in the area have told us that a few advanced MTs have been spotted. The Guard is keeping the battle confined to this section of the city but they won't be giving you direct support, though you shouldn't need it anyway. The fastest way to clear them out will probably be to split up. Good luck." Hanna said to the two.

     "Rodger, engaging combat mode." Sean said, and then jetted down the street looking for his first kill.

     Lance grinned and hit a the buttons to bring his combat system on-line "System engaged." His female computer's voice rang though the cockpit. His computer was a bit on the crude side so it wasn't the smooth voice some ACs had, but it didn't matter much. Lance's machine gun came up and he jetted in the opposite direction that Sean had gone. It wasn't long before his radar was lit up with enemy units, so he tapped the jump peddle and quickly was over the rooftops. His booster didn't have a very high output compared to some but with a AC as light as his he didn't need as much thrust, and this was he could stay in the air for quite a bit longer then most units.

     He gained enough height that he could see several basic MTs a couple streets over. He gunned his boosters and then started to freefall towards the two MTs. They spotted him before he landed and they began backing up and firing at the AC. Lance used a little light pressure on his boosters to weave back and forth, only taking a couple of the rifle hits. Neither pierced his armor and he started firing back as his target box went red. The machine gun he was using had a higher damage ratio compared to the other two AC machine guns on the market, so it only took fifty rounds or so before the MT fell back, sparking and smoking.

     He hit his boosters and came to a hover before he hit the street. He jetted forward and his blade lashed out. He cut from the waist up in a horizontal strike that sliced off almost half the MTs core, destroying its camera and rifle and probably killing the pilot. The MT toppled over but didn't explode, and Lance boosted off to find more enemies.

     Sean fired his Karasawa at the third MT, this time hitting it in its reverse-jointed knee. It fell over forward joined it's two comrades on the street. Sean had managed to take out all three without totaling destroying them, so collateral damage so far on his part was almost zip.

     He triggered his Overboost and whipped around the MTs and went further down the street. Another MT came up and Sean snapped off a shot that hit it square in the core. The blast blew the front of the core apart and the MT toppled over backwards and Sean killed his Overboost. On his radar he could see that the terrorists were scattered and few in number now. So far this had been an easier mission then his Ravens Test, even though he was getting sleepy from the drugs in his system.

     "Maverick, it's Hanna." The operator's voice jolted him back to full consciousness.

     "Yeah?"

     "We've got a new report from the Guard. Terrorists have been spotted in Trene City. Head west from your current position to get on the parkway and get over there, the Guard are saying that the terrorists have deployed a pair of ACs."

     "What about the MTs that are still here?"

     "The Guard will handle them, you guys did the brunt of the work and got them broken apart."

     "Alright, moving out." Sean turned around and hit his Overboost again. Trene City was clear on the other side of Layered. It's half above ground and half below, and houses most of the city's corporate headquarters, including Crest Inc. An AC, generally speaking, doesn't move real fast when you compare it to cars and such. ACs are designed to be able to move quickly within a small area (or at least Sean's was) and not fast in one direction. But you could still cover quite a bit of ground in an AC if you put your mind to it. Going straight without any obstacles Maverick could average out at about sixty or seventy mph, though it was more like moving at about twenty five running, then a hundred or more while Overboosting, then back to twenty five while he let his generator recharge.

     It wasn't long before Sean was on the parkway. The Guard had cleared out traffic so he didn't have to worry about crushing any cars (not that he really worried about it anyway, but he did worry about cars that had people in them). So far he hadn't seen Lance or gotten any communication from him, but he guessed with that light AC of his he managed to get ahead of him.

     "Ok Maverick, I've got some more info for you. It seems that the terrorists have captured a Commence Corporation office building and are holding the whole damn thing and everyone inside hostage. They struck about lunchtime so the place wasn't totally full but we're still talking about two hundred people, give or take a few."  
     "Commence? Never heard of 'em."

     "I'm not surprised. For the most part they aren't involved in the corporate war so they never need to contract Ravens. They make alloys that are used in building construction, and they also produce the armor used on most construction MTs."

     "You know why they've been taken hostage?"

     "Still working on that. Why don't you ask one of the terrorists when you get there?" Hanna joked. Sean didn't come back with a witty retort but instead thought about the situation for a moment.

     "Do they have people inside the building?"

     "We don't know. The Guard says they probably don't have the manpower to have anyone on the inside, but two ACs and a handful of MTs outside are enough to keep anyone from trying to get away. The terrorist's only demand is to talk to the head of Commence."

     "Anything else I should know?"

     "Nope. I'll keep you updated though."

                                                      *                *                *

     It took Sean about nineteen minutes to cross the city, so before long he was carefully stalking up on the hostile zone. With hostages involved he would have to be fast and nasty, otherwise they might start shooting at the building and kill off god knows how many people, and Sean didn't much want that among other things on his conscience.

     With ACs in the area he couldn't be sure if they were already watching him or not, since one or both could have long range radar equipped. "Hanna, is Lance in the area yet?"

     "Yes, he's moving in to flank them. I wouldn't try contacting him though, they might be able to intercept local transmissions. Don't worry he's not going to try anything stupid… I hope…"

     That didn't sound to good. Sean tried to not think about what the other Raven may or may not be doing and focused on his job. He found a tall building and quickly flew up it to get a look around. He already had enemy units on radar, but that didn't tell him anything but how many there were. He landed on a helicopter pad about half way up and hit his zoom.

     There were eight units down there, so that made two ACs and six MTs. The two ACs were pretty impressive in that they both had a lot of high-tech weaponry on them. It took Sean a moment to realize that they both were equipped exclusively with energy weapons, though one had solid-shell missile interceptors. One was a reverse-joint AC with a basic laser rifle, an energy-throwing laser blade, a pulse cannon on its right shoulder and a plasma cannon on it's left. It was painted dark maroon and dark teal, and its emblem was a teal dolphin jumping with a cresting wave framing it.

     The other AC had the interceptors and was kind of odd, though probably more effective in combat then it's partner. It had a dome shaped hybrid tank/hover leg set that hovered just a few feat off the ground, but doesn't provide the quick handling or ability to move over water that full hover legs did, but they were probably much more heavily armored and stable. On it's left arm it had a normal blade and on its right was a special parrying laser blade. Sean wasn't too familiar with parrying blades but he knew that if two normal blades hit each other they would just pass through each other uninhibited. A parrying blade obviously didn't have that same problem, but they had limited energy stores and took a moment to charge to full attack strength. On its shoulders were pulse cannons, each a different model, and it was painted white, bright green and blue. It had the same emblem as its partner.

     The MTs were all the same basic models that Sean had been fighting before. He knew that he could take them out with a single shot anywhere he hit them, so they would be his first targets. After that he could tie up the ACs until Lance was in position.

     Sean jumped and boosted forward. He flew until he found a tall building close enough that he could hit them. When he did he took up a sniping position on the roof. He didn't bother with a crouch or the gloves this time though, his FCS's abilities would be enough. He fired a shot and almost as soon as it hit the MT exploded, shattering some of the glass on the Commence building with armor shrapnel.

     "Enemy atta-" through some dumb luck Sean hit the MT that was yelling, and it too went up in a fireball. Now the MTs were scrambling, and the ACs had disappeared somewhere into the city below him. Sean fired again and a third MT went down as the joints in its waist were destroyed and it collapsed. Sean fired a forth shot that destroyed the rifle and cockpit of the MT it hit and he switched to missiles and jumped. He let his energy replenish itself as he fell.

     He landed on the roof of a building below him, striking it hard enough that the roof cratered in several feat and some of the windows on the top floor blew out. Sean realized he had overdone it a bit and checked his systems. He hadn't damaged any of his joints, but if he had been much higher he would have.

     Sean hit his Overboost and blasted over the remaining block and a half to the Commence building then dropped down to street level. He killed his thrust and acquired several locks through the corner of the building then jetted around the corner and fired at the MT. The four missiles slammed into it in succession, the first three destroying it's front armor and the last piercing the core before detonating and blowing up the rest of the MT with it. He switched back to his Karasawa he fired at the last MT as it tried to get away by going around the corner. The laser bolt was faster then the MT though and ripped off it's left leg, and the MT fell over onto a parked car.

     "Not bad…" Sean said, he was breathing heavily from the adrenalin but smiling, and he felt kinda worn out but wired at the same time. Checking his scopes he saw that the two terrorist ACs were coming back for him. But now Sean had the upper hand since he was between them and their prize. He didn't have the energy reserves to head out and meet them, so he waited in front of the Commence building and let Maverick have a breather.

     Sean snapped off a shot as soon as he saw one of the ACs, the reverse-joint one, but it ducked to the side and his FCS overcorrected for the dodge and the shot hit the building that the AC was boosting along side of. Sean jetted right and was surprised as pink pulse cannon shots started to splash against his right shoulder. He jetted right further and the white tank landed right in front of him. The AC had its right hand back and it punched at Sean, an orange blade shooting out at the last second and hitting Sean's AC in it's gut. He took a step back out of reflex and whipped his own blade up. He slashed up and sheared the right-arm blade cleanly off the white AC, which made Sean smile _So much for it parrying anything._

     Before the white AC could use it's other blade Sean jumped and twisted, bringing him up, over and behind the enemy AC. But the terrorist wasn't totally unprepared and two Exceeded Orbit laser guns popped out of the core and rotated around to fire at Sean. He beat them to it and planted a laser blast right between the white AC's shoulders and hit something important because the EO guns lost their thrust and clattered to the ground.

     Sean hit the ground and skidded to a stop, and was hit in the leg by a laser. He jetted back and swung his rifle around. He didn't hardly see the AC, just saw his lock go red and he fired twice. Both hit and the AC staggered back a bit and boosted to the side to avoid a third shot.

     Right at that moment all three of the AC pilots froze for a moment, because someone was yelling "Kamikaze!" over the comm. Sean assumed it was someone coming after him and boosted left, but his radar showed the newcomer as green. He turned and saw bullets raining down on the reverse-joint AC. A bare second later Lance landed on top of the AC, planting one foot on each shoulder he kept firing into the head, core and shoulders of the AC. Then he jumped. He must have slammed the pedal hard because not only did he jump clear of the AC but he nearly ripped of the AC's arms and forced it into a crouch.

     The AC could still apparently still see though and it used the crouch to its advantage and it's plasma cannon flipped up. With a weapon that big most ACs would have to crouch to use it, and it was kind of admirable how the pilot used the situation to his advantage. The cannon was kind of short until it flipped over the AC's shoulder, then the barrel jetted out making it almost long as a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. It managed to fire off a shot and it hit Lance in the shoulder, destroying his radar.

     It didn't get off another shot because Sean was on it in a flash. He jetted forward and fired three Karasawa shots into the crouching AC before he was close enough for a blade attack. His left arm reared back and he thrust his blade into and through the AC's core from a forward-left angle. He winced as his ears were filled with a piercing woman's scream, presumably whoever was in the AC he had just skewered. He jetted back in case it was about to explode, but it just froze in place.

     "Kara!" A male this time (the other pilot Sean assumed) yelled and he started firing a flurry of pulse cannon shots at Sean, who took to the air to dodge them.

     "Run dammit! Gaia needs you!" The woman yelled in a pained tone. Being able to intercept the little conversation they were having told Sean one thing, that they weren't using scrambled frequencies like Ravens or military would have. Terrorists they may be, but they weren't professionals.

     The male pilot growled loud enough that they could hear it over the comm. and he started making short boost jumps to speed himself up a bit as he fled "I don't think so!' Lance yelled and he started firing at the AC with his machine gun, but the pulse cannon fire coming back at him was to heavy and he had to duck behind a building as the white tank AC escaped into the city.

     "Let him go Lance, he won't pose much of a problem in the future." Sean said turning his Karasawa to the AC he had downed. It was smoking and didn't look like it would be going anywhere since Sean was fairly sure the pilot was hurt.

     "You bastards… He'll be back. We won't… be stopped." The pilot spat at them, though her voice was staggered and her comm. was fuzzy.

     "Yeah, yeah. Like we haven't heard that before." Lance said as he ran over to Sean and his catch.

     "Power your AC down." Sean ordered, and the woman complied "Good, now we just wait for the Guard to show up and haul that sorry wreak of yours away." After that last taunt Sean collapsed forward against his harness into unconsciousness. Seemed that head injury had finally caught up with him. Course the terrorist didn't know the man behind the Karasawa was having a little nap so she still didn't make a move.

                                                      *                *                *

     Sean had to forgo his planned break into arena combat due to his injuries. Well, not so much because he couldn't pilot but because after his fainting episode at the controls Luna absolutely insisted he at least wait until he had recovered from his concussion. She would have preferred he also wait until the cracked bones in his left arm and the broken rib healed to but she knew that was wishful thinking. As it was Sean was limping about and had a metal splint on his arm.

     The phone next to his bed rang, and Sean drearily rolled over and picked it up "Hello?" he said into the receiver. He was in the bed of his new apartment in Trene City about seven blocks from his battle with the two terrorist ACs. It was a fairly high-class part of the city but he could afford it, all but the worst Ravens were pretty loaded. He hadn't gotten around to decorating yet so all that was in the big four-room apartment was his phone and a mattress on the floor, both in the bedroom.

     "Hey Sean, I know you're still recovering but I received a odd mission request." Luna said over the phone. It must be pretty weird considering it was _her _that's making him recover "It's from the president of Commence, and it was sent straight to us. Apparently he caught word of your performance and did a little background check on us. He wants you for a mission. It's all very hush-hush and he wants to talk to you in person."

     Sean grumbled something incoherent. Whether he wanted to or not he was kinda irritated about someone disturbing is R&R "How much is he willing to pay…"

     "Between forty and ninety thousand credits."

     "… I'll be right over."


	4. Chapter Four Sneak Peak

"Hello one and all! Yes it is I, the mighty Sean talking to you, the reader! (Ok, I'm not that mighty, but I am indeedly Sean) As you may have guessed from the chapter title this is only a sneak preview of the LONG overdue chapter four. I apologize profusely for it having been so long, and yes I know that so far this little project of mine has blown up bigger then I thought it would if nothing else and that you want more! Writer's block is the true child of evil, I can personally attest to that. But for now please enjoy this preview of chapter four and bonus material from the very rough chapter five! Also, please understand that though I am a slacker I will finish this fic, and you have my personal permission to beat me with sticks if I don't."

"Without further talking from me, enjoy."

~~~

"I'll start looking into these Children of Gaia people. We can find their base tomorrow." Luna said over Sean's vid-link as he walked out of the Global Cortex hanger. It was time for his bodyguard duties.

     "Right. Before that though I want you to talk to Silver. Let him know what's going on, I'd like to have some back-up before waltzing in on these tree huggers."

     "Got'cha, see you later." With that the link closed and Sean took to the air. He had about four minutes to get down to the research and development level of Layered where most of the corporate laboratories were. It didn't take long, being a registered Raven he had access to the Layered's freight elevators. He took it down then flew across the shallow domed, dim lit R&D level towards Commence's laboratory. Right on time he picked up a light blue circle on his radar. Normally things showed up on his radar as upside-down triangles, so there wasn't much chance this was anything but Remilia Trevorlich.

     He found it kind of strange that a relative (he was guessing daughter) of Jackson Trevorlich was heading up this project, but then again Trevorlich struck him as the type to keep things as close to himself as possible, especially an important project like this.

     Remilia left the lab and got into a car, drove to the train that went up from here and got on. Sean took another elevator up and beat her train to sector 2, and continued following her. He had done this enough times it was becoming almost automatic. She couldn't take her car on the train obviously, so now she was on foot. This always struck Sean as a rather roundabout way to get home, but it was probably the fastest way to get from there to here.

     Sean yawned, and took his usual perch upon the Reclilon Office building, which at this hour was pretty much empty. He knew he should be on his toes in case the Children of Gaia picked tonight to make an attempt on her life, but the only thing that would get him to perk up right now was another no-doze or something really interesting happening.

     "Hmm…" and that there might qualify as something interesting. He nearly missed it but across the street two men, probably in their late twenties, were looking, and pointing at seeming to be talking about Remilia. It didn't take long for them to cut across the street and start following her as nonchalantly as possible, but at a quick enough pace they would catch up with her in a minute.

     He was tempted to sigh, but as things were he'd rather have this happen then nothing. A little light pressure on the booster pedal brought him into the air and to a hover, and just about then the two men made their move, running up to Remilia and grabbing her around the arms to drag her into an alleyway. Sean thumbed on his Overboost and was pushed hard into his seat with the force of the thrust quickly propelling him down to the street. He killed the OB and used his normal boosters to fly up and above eye level to the ally they had pulled her in to. He caught sight of them just in time to watch Remilia get hit in the head with something and fall to the ground.

     Sean made his move just as one of the men started grabbing at Remilia's dress coat. He let of on the booster and fell like a rock into the ally, hitting hard enough to fragment the concrete and crush flat a garbage dumpster his foot happened to land on. He was kind of sideways in the ally with his right side towards them, but that just made it a little more dramatic as he whipped his Karasawa up and pointed it roughly at them. It was close enough that they could see down the smooth bore barrel into the rifles guts.

     Though at this point most people would have pissed themselves (robots falling out of the sky and pointing guns the size of busses at you will do that) but still Sean felt obliged to flick on his loudspeaker "Freeze." They did anything but that though and bolted into the darkening back alleys. The lights were coming down so he decided that trying to chase them would be futile (and besides that he'd probably scuff his paint trying to navigate these narrow back streets) so he grabbed his left control glove and pulled it on, then dropped to a crouch and popped the hatch.

     Recently Luna had insisted that he get his control gloves upgraded to the new model, and he was glad that she did now. The new ones could be used remotely and be activated with buttons on the back of the glove. He fired it up once out of the cockpit and the left arm came alive. He maneuvered it around so he could step into its open palm and he lowered himself to the ground. Once down he locked the hand in place and jogged over to Remilia.

     She didn't look too bad. Whatever they had clubbed her with hadn't left any kind of injury he could see. Probably the worst that had happened was her jacket was open and her blouse was ripped enough to show more cleavage then was polite. He picked her up and went about the task of getting her home.

                                                      *                *                *

About fifteen minutes later Remilia woke up suddenly. She found herself in her own bed with the lights on. About the only thing she could think about was that her head hurt, but shortly after that she wanted to know what had happened. She looked around her bedroom and saw a brown-haired man wearing mostly black that she vaguely recognized sitting in her reading chair. He had apparently nodded off and his head was propped up on a fist.

     She got up and looked at herself in a long mirror she had on her wall. Her cloths were a mess and the white blouse she had on was ripped a little. Quickly she buttoned her jacket back up to hide that fact then turned towards the man in her chair. She didn't know what was going on but she'd venture a guess it was his fault.

     The first thing she did was walk over and swat his hand out from under his head, which woke him up rather rudely "What the… Oh, good you're awake." He yawned, then looked over at the clock on her nightstand "Looks like your door guard is running late." He commented.

     Remilia's mouth worked a couple times, like she was trying to say something before the words came to mind "Who in the hell are you?!" Was what finally came out.

     He yawned again "I'm Maverick, one of Jackson Trevorlich's hired hands. He wanted me to keep an eye on you."

     "A pilot?"

     "Raven, to be precise."

     If that fact impressed her then she didn't show it. In fact she still looked quite agitated "Just what exactly happened to me?"

     "Well, a couple of guys drug you into an ally and clubbed you. You were knocked unconscious so I brought you here."

     "Oh." She looked a little more worried now. She sat down on the edge of her bed "Do you know who they were?"

     "I image just some street punks."

     "Not Children of Gaia?"

     Sean chuckled "So, you do know how deep you're in all this. No they weren't, Children of Gaia strike me as fanatical enough that they wouldn't have ran from me. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

     Remilia let out a relieved sigh "Good."

     "You know, Mr. Trevorlich thought you wouldn't be happy having a guard following you around, but you seem to be taking this rather well."

     Remilia brushed some of her hair back "I expected he'd do something like this, I just didn't think he'd bring in a Raven so soon." Then she stood up. For the first time Sean realized that she was almost as tall as he was, probably 5'11 and a half. "Go out into the living room. I'm going to change, then I want to talk to you for a couple of minutes."

     Sean did as he was requested, then let out a sigh as soon as she'd shut the door behind her "Great…" He was thinking in the back of his mind _I do a little extra curricular work and now I'd bet she thinks I'm her lap dog._

     The only bright stop of this situation was she didn't take long in getting dressed, just a couple of minutes. Now she was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, a hooded sweatshirt of the same color and white sneakers. It wasn't terribly flattering, but she didn't seem to care.

     "For starters, I want to know how long you have been following me. Wait a second, you were that irritating man in the bar weren't you?"

     Sean managed a chuckle "Guilty. I'd been following you for about two days before that."

     "You're real name is Sean then?" He nodded and she sighed, but whatever she was going to say next was cut off by a knock at the door. Remilia went to the door and opened it a crack "Yes?"

     The man on the other side wasted no time. He kicked the door hard and Remilia lost her grip on it but didn't lose her balance, and was now straight in front of him. He was a Hispanic fellow wearing blue jeans and a faded jean jacket. He also had a silver pistol in his right hand. He lifted the gun up and leveled it at Remilia's head.

     She wasted no time. Her left hand came up even before the gun was lifted all the way and swatted his hand to her right, then grabbed and pinned his wrist with her right hand. She caught the corner of the door with her toe and flipped it into her waiting hand, then slammed the man's arm in the door hard, hard enough in fact that Sean winced as he heard the bones snap. He dropped his gun and Remilia slammed the door shut and with a couple keystrokes on the security panel next to the door and several heavy "clunks" marked the locks sliding into place, making the door about as likely to come open as the wall next to it.

     She picked up the gun and checked it quickly "Wow." Sean found himself mumbling.

     "Shit. This thing has a biometric lock on it." She muttered, then pulled the clip out of the handle. Semi-auto pistols had evolved very little since their invention, save for locks on them that, when set, made it impossible for anyone but the registered owner to fire it. Remilia seemed to be trying to fix that problem at the moment though, and she had pulled several wires and a small set of microchips out of the pistol.

     Time wasn't in her favor though, and the windows behind the couch Sean was sitting on were broken in and two black clad assassins leapt in. Sean was no expert in unarmed combat but, as the guard on his left discovered when the back of Sean's fist hit the side of his head and knocked him against the wall six or seven feat away, he made up for it with his "Plus" status.

     The assassins were however very skilled, Sean had just caught the first off guard. The assassin struck Sean in the throat with the edge of his open hand, the while he was reeling grabbed the front of his jacket and hurled him into the center of the room and drew his handgun in one motion.

     Sean only heard the shots, but he didn't feel the hot kiss of the lead bullets tearing him up. He dared to look and saw the man slumped on the couch, bleeding from the four gunshots he'd taken to the chest.

     Remilia lowered the handgun. Besides the grip on the left side being missing and something black dangling out from the bottom hanging by some wires it seemed to be in good working order "Damn, what _don't _you do?" He asked somewhat dumbfounded.

     Remilia ignored him "We have to get out of here."

     "You… Won't be going anywhere…" The assassin Sean had taken down mumbled. Remilia drew her sights on him.

     "What did you do?" She asked and ordered at the same time.

     "See you in hell." He replied, and the wall next to him burst in. The crack of AC or MT size weaponry followed after it, like thunder following lighting. The huge rounds started tracking along the wall, destroying the apartment. Sean managed to scramble to his feet and grab Remilia's arm. He pulled them into back into the bedroom just as several rockets burst through the walls and detonated. The wall between rooms shielded them from the blast, but this room was next.

     Sean didn't think twice and punched out a window next to her bed. Ignoring the cuts it left on his hand he pulled Remilia out with him. Once the two were freefalling Sean realized that the fire escape was next to the other window, but fortunately they were only on the third floor. Sean wasn't fazed by the fall, but Remilia was.

     "You bastard!" She spat at him "What made you think that was a good idea?!" She tried to resist him pulling her to her feet but she'd sprained both her ankles bad enough on the landing she couldn't stand on her own.

     "I thought it was a good idea…" Sean said as he basically drug her down the ally back to where his AC was parked "When they started firing explosives through the damn walls."

     Despite her earlier show of competence Remilia overall wasn't very good at this sort of thing. As she gimped along with Sean's help she fired the pistol at the MT's behind them. Of course a gun that size couldn't put more then a scuff mark on a MT, but it did get their attention, which was soon apparent when they shifted their fire towards them.

     Sean didn't bother telling her that was a bad idea, she figured that out quickly enough. Weapons of that scale weren't meant to shoot at things as small as humans, especially at a distance of two hundred and fifty feet, give or take, but the shrapnel was leaving bruises and welts on both of them. Finally they made it around the corner of the building to the glorious sight of Sean's beloved mechanical partner.

     He'd parked close enough to a fire escape on this side that they had a ladder to climb to the cockpit, though he had to more or less carry Remilia up it. Normally it'd have been a burden Sean would just as soon do without, but with the sound of the MT's closing in it didn't seem so bad. He let her go next to the hatch and got it open quickly, then dropped down into the seat "Come on!" He waved his hand at her to get in after him.

     "N… No!" She seemed offended by the very idea of having to sit on his lap. Well Sean wasn't going to take no for an answer at the moment, and grabbed her by the wrist roughly and pulled her in on top of him.

     "You're a lot heavier then you look." He agitatedly commented as he tried to untangle himself from her and get Maverick started up at the same time. Somehow he managed the later at least, and all systems came up green.

     "Main system, engaging combat mode." Maverick said calmly despite the chaos in his cockpit, and Sean managed to get settled enough to get his feat on the floor and his hands on the sticks, so he hit the jump pedal and fired the boosters. They gained speed and altitude quickly, and once they had reached the rooftop height he hit his overboost. He didn't get far, staying in the air while overboosting was hard since the powerful boosters were built in between the AC's shoulders, so just from their position they would push you into the ground, so you had to use normal boosters as well to stay level. It did propel them out of the combat zone though, but not by much.

     When they hit the street hard Remilia nearly ended up on the floor, and she quickly scrambled up into a sitting position "That went well." Sean said.

     "What do you mean "Went well"?" She said harshly, jabbing Sean in the ribs with her elbow at the same time. He immediately winced as she hit the still broken bone.

     "That's not a very nice way to thank your bodyguard." He said through the stabbing pain in his chest.

     "I didn't ask for your help."  
     "And I'm starting to regret giving it, there are you happy now?"

     They both stayed quiet for a moment as Sean jogged towards the elevator heading up "Where are we going?" Remilia asked him.

     "Global Cortex. There are some people I need to talk to, and it'll probably be the only safe place in the city for you in a short while. Those Gaia's Children are really tenacious if nothing else."

     "So why didn't you just light those bastards up? Or is that big gun just for show?" She asked him, pointing at the Karasawa she could see in his AC's hand through the main view screen.

     "I'm trying to stay in their good graces." Sean replied. Right about then they reached the elevator shaft. A quick keystroke and it opened up. He stepped on and it automatically started upwards.

     "What?! Tell me why!"

     Sean laughed "I've already told you to much."

     That infuriated Remilia even more "Don't give me that bull shit! Tell me what your connection is with them now!"

     "Look," Sean was beginning to lose his cool "You're seriously over-estimating my attachment to this contract, which, might I add, had been far more trouble then it's worth so far. If you want out then by all means take a hike, and good luck with those MTs." Though Remilia might not have liked it, occasionally she did realize when someone had her beat.


	5. Chapter Five Sneak Peak

"I started this chapter because I was so stuck on number four, so since I have it here and I'm trying to salvage at least a shred of people's faith in me to deliver the goods you get to see it before it should even exist! Please keep in mind it is pretty rough, and who knows the following section may not even be in the final product. But it is a tidbit if nothing else. Hope you like it!"

~~~

The crowd roared, the lights flashed, the smells of deadly machinery and snack food swirled about and it all blended together in a montage that berated the senses and psyched you up for the main event. It was this generation's favorite sport, the bloodless combat of the Arena where two or more of the few and elite Raven's compete against each other for cash and prizes.

     Today's match was in the standard arena. Sometimes other battlefields were used but these weren't as favored by the fans since they couldn't be right there to watch. The crowd waited restlessly for things to get under way and soon the level of noise in the seats soared to new heights as the two ACs were lifted into the arena from the underground hangers. On one side the AC shifted slightly as the magnetic clamps released its large feet. It was a white and light blue AC named Snowfall and was the defending AC today. The challenger, a much thinner AC by the name of Angel Hunter, a black and white mid-weight humanoid with missile pods for arms, stealth extensions on the sides and a pulse cannon and radar on his back. One woman in the front row was cheering a little louder for the Raven in the black AC. She wanted her partner Zodiac to win of course. She had the daring look of a Raven about her with her red tank top under a denim vest and jeans, her muscular build and short red-brown hair that was held back by a red bandana.

     "Three…" The mechanical voice sounded and if anything the shouting got even louder "Two… One… Go…" Both ACs hit their Overboost and the deafening roar rose another few notches. The female pilot smiled, thinking that her partner had been too hard on himself when he feared that no one would want to see his battle.

     Zodiac's stealth activated and he fired four pair of missiles out in quick succession. Snowfall didn't budge, didn't even flinch as its missile interceptors made quick work of haff the missiles. The last four hit it and didn't seem to phase it at all, only leaving long silver streaks where the top inch or two of armor was destroyed. Zodiac stopped and jetted sideways but Snowfall followed him, never cutting off his Overboost. This wasn't exactly a standard tactic and Zodiac didn't know what to expect until Snowfall collided with his Angel Hunter. 

     Snowfall lifted Angel Hunter off the ground and even with their combined weight it didn't take long before they hit the protective energy barrier that shielded the crowd hard enough that it rippled and sagged momentarily. With its OB still going Snowfall pushed Angel Hunter up the shield. Its back equipment, boosters and miscellaneous bits and pieces fell like so much stale confetti. When they hit the ceiling Snowfall cut its thrust and let Angel Hunter go. It fell the whole length of the arena and his partner nearly choked on a malt ball when Zodiac's AC hit the ground with a pang loud enough that it cut through the crowd. He didn't get back up.

      "Silver, piloting "Snowfall" is the winner!" This time the voice was a human announcer, but Silver wasn't done. He landed hard next to the heap Angel Hunter was in and took one step forward onto the core of the fallen AC. Boo's and hisses sounded all over the arena from this show of excessive force but Silver didn't stop. His machine gun rose up and fired into the open missile pod arm, setting off the highly damaging warhead. It blew and took out a considerable chunk of the core with it. His aim shifted and the other pod went up in a fireball. Now satisfied Snowfall stepped back and started to slowly walk away from the possibly dead Raven while recovery teams rushed passed him.

     Fifteen minutes after the battle the worried partner of the decimated pilot paced outside of the hospital wing. She hadn't heard news about Zodiac yet, and she didn't know if that was good or bad. Finally the door slid into the wall and he walked out. Zodiac looked a bit shaky but the only injury she could see on the man was a cut on his forehead that was closed with a butterfly bandage.

     "Jesus Christ I nearly pissed myself watching that fight, are you ok Joe?"

     "Huh?" Zodiac, or "Joe" as he was known outside of the Ravens, looked up. His eyes were a little glassy, like he had just gotten hit in the head with something. "Yeah Jo, I think I'm alright. I'm just worried about my AC."

     The two were a fairly mismatched pair. On one hand Jo, Josephine if you wanted to be formal or Bull God in the arena, was tall and fairly butch, not to mention a total tomboy. Joe was skinny and a little short, with long and black hair and gray eyes. He was generally considered very goth with the way he dressed though right now he was wearing a black pilot jumpsuit. The two met on their Raven test six months ago and they had stuck together since then just out of convenience's sake.

     Jo shook her head "Dammit, that sonofabitch Silver is going to get a shiv in his ear for that fight, I kid you not."

     The two walked off down the hall together, Joe moving a little slow and Jo having to shorten her stride to compensate "Is Global Cortex paying for my AC?" Joe asked very worriedly.

     "They should, you drew more people then you thought you would, plus Silver is good for the rating just 'cus he's such a bastard." Jo answered. In the arena Global Cortex would pay for ammunition and repairs even if you lost, just as long as they got enough revenue from the fight. If there wasn't enough money you'd have to pay the difference, which made it hard on the lower rank and less popular Ravens. It did weed out the meek though.

     "Well, I heard that that pilot who was killed a few weeks ago was his friend." Joe had always been too forgiving.

     "Pshh, that's no excuse. If the asshole cared about anyone he'd be thinkin' about the friends of the pilot who he's beating the crap out of."

     "Hey now, don't remind me." Joe muttered. The two took an elevator up and on the way to street level Jo's cell phone rang.

     "Hello?" She answered. Whoever was on the other end talked into her ear a little "Really?" He responded to something the person said "Wait… You don't mean the arena in downtown do you?" She was answered by the elevator opening to the sight of an attack helicopter crashing into the street. People were scattering everywhere and a blue car in front of them skidded to a stop and several cars hit into it from behind. Even these young Ravens were rather jaded and calmly peeked around the corner to see what was going on. Several basic battle MTs complemented with an advanced battle MT and a few helicopters were fighting with a detachment of Guard units. Joe reached out and hit the button to take them back down. Jo was still talking on her phone "Yeah sure I'll take it. Is my AC here? Ok good." She hung up and pocketed the phone.

     "I take it that that was about the battle up there?" Joe asked nonchalantly.

     "Yep, Bern is transferring my AC over here to padlock eight." ACs were normally docked at the Global Cortex hanger but to keep air traffic down high-speed underground transport trains were used to transfer ACs to the arena, so Jo would have her AC here in just a couple of minutes.

     Nine minutes and seventeen seconds later Jo stepped out into the street, her quartet of legs moving her along at a brisk pace. Her AC had fairly light armor but heavy firepower, a somewhat odd mix. Tank legs were a better firing platform but she didn't like the lack of speed and maneuverability, and quadruped legs (sometimes referred to as spider legs) were almost as good but boasted some of the best mobility around.

     "Main system, engaging combat mode." The calm female computer's voice filled the cockpit and her weapons were alive all at once. She had a high-speed rifle in her right hand and a flamethrower in her left. On her back was mounted a triple-barrel laser cannon and a chain gun, and concealed in her shoulders were napalm rockets. Her core was even set up with an energy machinegun Exceeded Orbit gun. She defiantly wasn't one to do things subtly…

~~~

"Well, that is it for this special preview edition of "A Mercenary's Vicarage". Please have a little faith that both these chapters and the one (or possibly two) after it will in fact be completed. I've just suddenly had a bad case of writer's block and worse case of the real world blues crashing in on me like a ton of freakin' bricks! But this story and my readers (yep, even you) are never far from my mind. I'll get it done, just wouldn't be able to sleep good at night if I didn't!"

"As always feel free to e-mail me about anything at Butterfly Edge@aol.com or neptune_lamour@yahoo.com  (I tend to forget about the second one so try the first one… well… first."


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